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/ 
EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS 

AND 

ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY 




. P. EVANS 



AUTHOR OF ANIMAL SYMBOLISM IN ECCLESIASTICAL 
ARCHITECTURE, THE CRIMINAL PROSECUTION AND 
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT OF ANIMALS, ETC. •:• •:• 




NEW YORK - ^H 

D. APPLETON AND COM P AINf¥^*^ ^F 

1897 
L> 




TWO m'm BiMWEO 






1236 



Copyright, 1897, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 





/ 
>3 



li! 



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/(32-. 



TO MY WIFE, 

ELIZABETH E. EVANS. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

Introduction: Animal psychology as the foundation 
OF animal's rights in the historical evolution 
of ethics . , ,1 



EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

I. — The ethics of tribal society 19 

II. — Religious belief as a basis of moral obliga- 
tion 58 

III. — Ethical relations of man to beast .... 82 

IV. — Metempsychosis . . . . . . , . 105 



ANIMAL PSYCHOLOaY. 

V. — Mind in man and brute 165 

VI. — Progress and perfectibility in the lower ani- 
mals 197 

VII.— Ideation in animals and men 222 

VIII. — Speech as a barrier between man and beast . 270 
IX.— The esthetic sense and religious sentiment in 

animals 333 

Bibliography 359 

Index 369 

V 



EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 



INTRODUCTION^. 

ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY AS THE POUNDATION" OF ANI- 
MALS' EIGHTS IN THE HISTOKICAL EVOLUTION OF 
ETHICS. 

Recent enlargement of mental science. Close connection between 
evolutional ethics and animal psychology. Modern survivals 
of mediaeval metaphysics and anthropocentric ethics. " Zo- 
ophily." Personification of inanimate objects by primitive 
peoples. Example from the Kalewala. Observation of ani- 
mals by hunters and herdsmen in early society. Superstitious 
fear of animals and the rise of zoolatry. Survivals of animal 
worship in the cults of civilized races. Human appreciation 
of the lower animals as the result of their domestication. 
Their position as members of the tribe or family. Their 
worth recognised by primitive legislation. The dog in the 
Avesta. Zarathustra's care for cattle. Buddha's precepts in 
respect to animal life. The doctrine of evolution taught by 
Greek philosophers. The Ionic school of naturalists. Aris- 
totle and Theophrastus. Greek speculation from Thales to 
Proclus. Celsus and Origen. Advanced views of Nemesius. 
His superiority to St. Augustine. Thomas Aquinas and the 
scholiasts. Beasts as types and symbols of spiritual truths. 
Their equality with man before the law. The principle of 
animals' rights asserted by evolutionists and generally op- 
posed by theologians. Lotze's theory of soul and body. Psy- 
chical faculties as affected by the physical organism. Their 
coetaneous development and peculiar interdependence in the 
pithecoid stage of man's evolution. The starting point of 



2 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

humanity. General intelligence in the simplest organisms. 
Observations of Darwin and Romanes. Growth of instincts 
analogous to formation of habits. The measure of man's duty 
to the lower animals determined by the degree of their mental 
development. 

There are scarcely any topics which excite such gen- 
eral interest, and are so frequently discussed nowadays, 
as the origin and evolution of ethical conceptions as re- 
vealed in the history of civilization, and the growth and 
development, the outward manifestations and essential 
qualities of mind in the lower animals, to the study of- 
which the most recent researches in comparative phi- 
lology, hiology, psychology, and kindred branches of 
natural and mental science have given a fresh impulse 
and new direction, and opened up a broader and clearer 
field of view. 

The intimate eonnection between evolutional ethics 
and animal psychology must be apparent to all who 
carefully consider the influence necessarily exerted by 
a proper appreciation of animal intelligence upon the 
recognition of man's moral relations and obligations 
to the creatures with whom he is so closely associated, 
and who are so largely subject to his dominion. The 
main argument urged by mediaeval and modern 
scholiasts against the doctrine of the rights of animals 
is based upon the assumption that they are utterly de- 
void of those psychical powers which constitute per- 
sonality even in the most restricted sense of this term. 
'^ Brute beasts," says the Eev. Joseph Eickaby, an Eng- 
lish Jesuit and author of a work on moral philosophy, 
"not having understanding, and, therefore, not being 
persons, can not have rights. The conclusion is clear. 
They are not autocentric. They are of the number 



ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 3 

of things which are another's." He infers from these 
premises that "we have no duties of any kind to the 
lower animals, as neither to stocks nor stones " ; " not 
of justice . . . and not of religion . . . not of fidel- 
ity .. . no duties of charity." * Father Eickaby and 
the Eev. Prof. Tyrrell represent a large class of dogmatic 
divines and belated schoolmen, who postulate an abso- 
lute and abysmal chasm between man and all other sen- 
tient organisms, and found upon this gratuitous assump- 
tion a narrow system of anthropocentric ethics at vari- 
ance alike with the deductions of modern science and the 
finer feelings of humanity. In order to meet on their 
own ground these followers of St. Thomas Aquinas, the 
"angelic doctor," whose metaphysical quillets and 
quodlihets received the sanction of the Council of Trent 
and still rank as quasi-articles of faith in the Catholic 
Church, it is only necessary to show that the supposed 
chasm has no real existence as a fixed, final, and im- 
passable barrier, and in the light of modern anthropo- 
logical and psychological research has resolved itself 
into a wavering, indeterminable, and almost evanescent 
line of demarcation. As Miss Cobbe has very perti- 
nently remarked: " The whole subject of our moral re- 
lations to the lower animals is undoubtedly a most ob- 
scure and difficult one. . . . Some revision of the 
^Person and Thing' philosophy is, however, the first 
thing to be achieved; some reconstruction of the meta- 
physical and ethical systems of bygone times in better 
accordance with our present anthropolgy and psycholo- 

* Quoted by Frances Power Cobbe in The Ethics of Zoophily, 
a paper published originally in the London Contemporary Review 
(November, 1895), in refutation of similar views expressed by the 
Rev. George Tyrrell, also a disciple of Loyola. 



4 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

gy. . . . The elephant and the butterfly can not be 
boxed together nowadays, except in a child^s Noah's 
Ark. A Fuegian who eats his grandmother and can 
barely count his fingers can not be pigeonholed a ^ Per- 
son/ and at the same time Landseer's dog a ' Thing/ 
except in a mediaeval mind, which has somehow sur- 
vived preternaturally into the Darwinian period." (lb., 
p. 10.) 

In tracing the history of the evolution of ethics 
we find the recognition of mutual rights and duties 
confined at first to members of the same horde or tribe, 
then extended to worshippers of the same gods, and 
gradually enlarged so as to include every civilized 
nation, until at length all races of men are at least 
theoretically conceived as being united in a common 
bond of brotherhood and benevolent sympathy, which 
is now slowly expanding so as to comprise not only 
the higher species of animals, but also every sensitive 
embodiment of organic life. 

But while . the primitive man regarded all human 
beings who were not his kinsmen as his enemies, his 
classification of the lower animals in their relations 
to himself was by no means so simple. In the child- 
hood of the race, as of the individual, the imagination 
easily spans the gulf that separates the animate from 
the inanimate, and attributes consciousness and per- 
sonality even to lifeless and formless objects. A strik- 
ing illustration of this tendency, as it survives in poetry, 
is the manner in which Lemminkainen, in the Finnic 
epos Kalewala, accosts the roadways which seem to 
come to meet her as she goes in search of her lost son: 

*' Roadways, ye whom God hath shapen, 
Have ye not my son beholden, 



ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 5 

Nowhere seen the golden apple, 
Him my darling staff of silver ? " 
Prudently they gave her answer, 
Thus to her replied the Roadways : 
*'For thy son we can not plague us, 
We have sorrows, too, a many. 
Since our own lot is a hard one 
And our fortune is but evil, 
By dogs' feet to be run over, 
By the wheel-tire to be wounded, 
And by heavy heels down- trampled." 

The same naive and vigorous fancy that could thus 
transform an ensemble of dust and clods into a living, 
thinking, and speaking entity would be still less cog- 
nizant of the spiritual disparity between man and beast, 
and would scarcely feel the absence of the " missing 
link," which modern anthropologists are making such 
strenuous efforts to discover. The grazing of flocks 
and herds, or the exciting perils of the chase, would 
lead to a close observation of the habits and peculiari- 
ties of different animals and give rise to strange con- 
jectures and theories concerning their relationship to 
the human race, which in general qualities they so 
strongly resemble, and in special senses, such as sharp- 
ness of sight, keenness of scent, quickness of hearing, 
and swiftness of foot, they so far excel. The percep- 
tion of these manifold capacities would suggest and 
enforce the recognition of an analogue of the soul 
underl3dng and controlling this complex of thoughts, 
feelings, impulses, and passions. Metaphysics had not 
yet woven its intricate raddle hedge of verbal defini- 
tions round the provinces of reason and instinct; the 
boundaries of the two spiritual realms were not so fixed, 
nor the distinctions so radical but that transitions from 



6 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

one state to the other were accepted as possible and 
even ordinary occurrences. Hence the popular belief 
in werewolves and other metamorphoses of men into 
beasts and beasts into men, which prevails in the 
primitive history, and survives among the lower classes 
of all nations, and plays so prominent a part in fairy 
tales and folklore, and forms the basis of the wonder- 
ful doctrine of metempsychosis. 

Hence, too, arose a vague superstitious fear of the 
lower animals, not merely on account of their superior 
physical strength and natural ferocity, but also as em- 
bodiments of mysterious powers, and especially as re- 
incarnations of deceased chieftains and warriors. This 
feeling is the source of totemism and the worship of 
deified ancestors in the forms of beasts and birds and 
even reptiles, which is probably the basis of all zoolatry. 
Survivals of this primitive cult are found in the my- 
thologies of the most highly cultivated peoples, as, for 
example, in the eagle of Jupiter, the owl of Minerva, 
and the serpent of ^sculapius, where the animal, that 
was originally the real object of adoration, has become, 
in the evolution of religious ideas, simply the emblem 
of an anthropomorphic deity. Even Christianity, with 
all its spiritual aims and aspirations, shows distinct 
vestiges of zoolatrous worship in the conception of the 
Holy Spirit as a dove, of Christ as a lamb, of Satan as 
a dragon or a serpent, in the sjntnbolism of the fish 
and lion, in the monsters of the Apocalypse, and the 
attributes of the evangelists borrowed from the vision 
of the prophet Ezekiel. 

In this connection, however, our chief concern is 
not in the psychological explanation and historical 
evolution of zoolatry, but in its ethical influence as af- 



ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. ^ 

fecting man's treatment of the lower animals. The 
law of enmity is older and more universal than that of 
friendship. The earliest and strongest emotion in the 
breast of the savage is that of hatred and hostility to 
other men, as well as to all beasts of the field and of 
the forest. Indeed he makes no moral distinction 
between them, but regards them indiscriminately as 
foes, whom it is his imperative duty to destroy. If he 
recognises their superiority, he tries to flee from them 
or seeks to avert their wrath and win their favour by 
reverential submission and propitiation. In no case 
are they to him objects of affection; if he flatters them, 
it is not fondness but fear that is the motive of his 
conduct. The element of love does not enter into the 
religion of the primitive man, who adores and appeases 
by offerings and adulation only the beings he dreads. 

The first feeling of genuine human sympathy with 
the lower animals grew out of their subjection and 
domestication, whereby they, like captives of war, were 
recognised as members of the family or tribe with which 
they were united by ties, not of actual affinity, but of 
adoption and common interest. They were reared and 
cherished because they contributed to the comfort and 
general welfare of the community, and this association 
during successive generations gradually led to the 
growth of permanent and traditional sentiments of 
kindness and benevolence toward them, and a natural 
desire to promote their happiness. The Sanskrit word 
for cattle (pasu) signified a creature " bound " to serv- 
ice, whether men, kine, horses, goats, or sheep, and the 
Roman familia included both domestic animals and 
slaves. The transition from the life of hunters to that 
of herdsmen, and finally from these nomadic stages to 



8 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

that of sedentary tillers of the soil, resulted in a more 
intimate knowledge and higher appreciation of the 
lower animals and a clearer conception of their mental 
and moral qualities. Man began to discover in them 
not only a remarkable capacity to understand him, 
but also a readiness and eagerness to execute his com- 
mands. This was especially true of his most faithful 
friend and constant companion, the dog, for whose 
proper nurture, protection, and kind treatment the 
sacred books of the ancient Persians contain the strict- 
est injunctions with the severest penalties for their 
violation. These prescriptions, as well as those en- 
joining considerate care and compassion for cattle of 
every kind, although proclaimed as a revelation of the 
Good Mind (Vohu-mano) and embodied by Zara- 
thustra in the Iranian religion, in order to invest them 
with supreme authority, were really based upon a per- 
ception of the intrinsic worth of the creatures them- 
selves and their usefulness to man. This is evident 
from the distinction made between beneficent and 
baneful creatures, the latter being products and agents 
of the Evil Mind (Akem-mano emanating from the 
Hurtful Spirit Angro-mainyush), which it is the sacred 
duty of the worshippers of the Living God (Ahura- 
mazda, the personification of the Bountiful Spirit 
Spento-mainyush) to exterminate. This dualism of god 
and devil is practically applied in the story of creation 
as recorded in the first fargard of the Vendidad, and 
furnishes the foundation of the most reasonable and 
equitable system of animal ethics developed by any 
Oriental people. Buddha forbade his followers to kill 
any animal whatsoever, and this absolute prohibition 
in the countries in which Buddhism prevails and 



ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 9 

ravenous beasts and poisonous reptiles abound, if con- 
scientiously observed, would necessarily prove highly 
detrimental to the human inhabitants. But religious 
precepts, arbitrarily imposed, do not always suffice to 
curb the brutal instincts of the natural man, and the 
torture of animals, unwittingly through ignorance or 
wilfully through malice, is not unknown even in Bud- 
dhistic lands. In this, as in every department of ethics, 
the conduct of the individual depends upon the degree 
of his mental enlightenment and moral development, 
and is influenced by the religious creed he happens to 
profess only so far as the latter may incidentally 
modify his personal character. As a rule, its effect 
in restraining inborn propensities is very slight, espe- 
cially when the religion is handed down from genera- 
tion to generation as a sacred heirloom of the race and 
the performance of the duties it inculcates becomes 
perfunctory. 

The metaphysical principle underlying this tender 
regard for all sentient organisms taught by Brahmans 
and Buddhists is the coessentiality of men and ani- ^ 
mals, from which the doctrine of metempsychosis is 
logically deduced. Many of the early Greek philoso- 
phers entertained the same theory, which was first fully 
developed by the Ionic school of naturalists and physi- 
ologists, one of whom, Anaximander, held the idea of 
evolution and even asserted the descent of man from 
the lower animals. It formed also the cosmo-theo- 
logical basis of a system of animal ethics, most clearly 
and completely formulated, perhaps, in the writings of v 
Aristotle's celebrated pupil Theophrastus. In fact, it 
pervades all Greek speculation for more than ten centu- 
ries, from Thales to Proclus, and is strongly emphasized 



10 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

by Plutarch, Plotinus, and Porphyrms, and other repre- 
sentatives of Neoplatonism and E'eopythagoreanism, 
who made a practical application of it in urging absti- 
nence from the use of flesh as an article of food. In- 
deed, this psychical homogeneity was so generally ac- 
cepted by leading thinkers in the first and second centu- 
ries of our era as an unquestionable and quite axiomatic 
truth that the eclectic philosopher Celsus did not hesi- 
tate to adduce the denial of it as one of his most serious 
charges against Christianity. In replying to this acute 
and subtile, though rather superficial pagan polemic, 
Origen admits the correctness of the accusation, but is 
not at all disturbed by it; on the contrary, he main- 
tains that the anthropocentric standpoint of Chris- 
tianity is impregnable. All things, he declares, includ- 
ing animals, were created for man; the harmless ones 
sj being designed to be subjected to his will in order that 
they may minister to his convenience and comfort, 
while the hurtful ones contribute to the development 
of his thinking faculties and his sensibilities. How 
these latter effects are produced it is difiicult to under- 
stand, unless it be by sharpening his wits in the strug- 
gle for existence against noxious creatures and by cul- 
tivating at the same time his patience and powers of 
endurance. So far as the animals themselves are con- 
cerned, Origen affirms that they have neither under- 
standing nor will, but are mere mechanisms skilfully 
constructed and kept in operation by the hand of God 
working through " all-mother Nature.'^ This was the 
theory held by nearly all the Fathers of the Church and 
early Christian theologians, about the only notable 
exception being Nemesius, who was Bishop of Emesa 
■in Syria during the latter half of the fourth century, 



ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. H 

and who seems to have beheved with Ealph Waldo 
Emerson that 

A subtle chain of countless rings 
The next unto the farthest brings ; 

And, striving to be man, the worm 
Mounts through all the spires of form. 

In other words, this remarkably clear-minded and 
sharp-sighted ecclesiastic, in his work on The Nature 
of Man {Trepl (j)V(7eco^ dvS^pcoTrov), appears to have 
discovered the principle of organic evolution fifteen 
centuries before Darwin made it the keystone of mod- 
ern science, just as he anticipated Harvey by nearly 
thirteen centuries in describing the action of the heart 
and the circulation of the blood, and left on record some 
striking observations as regards the functions of the 
liver and the bile. He also maintained, in opposition 
to the current superstition of his day, that insanity is 
due to brain disease and not to demoniacal possession. 

]N"emesius, however, was endowed with a degree of 
insight and intelligence rare among his contemporaries 
and seldom shown even by the most enlightened of his 
coreligionists, among whom St. i^ugustine holds the 
first rank, not owing to superior learning, but on ac- 
count of his uncommon intellectual acuteness, winning 
personality, and fiery zeal. As the chief exponent of 
the doctrine of predestination, the Bishop of Hippo 
robbed man of free agency and rendered him the 
wretched victim of divine decrees; but this affected only 
his relation to God and his eternal destiny, and did not 
diminish his dominion over " every living thing that 
moveth upon the earth " ; an authority which patristic 



12 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

theologians, and especially mediaeval scholiasts, with 
Thomas Aquinas at their head, claimed to be absolute 
and unrestrained by any recognition of rights or even 
sense of moral obligation on the part of man, except 
such humaneness and general benevolence as might 
spring from the vague and variable conception of his 
own worthiness. 

Christian theologians and exegetists began also at a 
very early period to use the real or fabulous charac- 
teristics of animals for the illustration and enforce- 
ment of religious dogmas and moral duties. In this 
way it was possible to reconcile the existence of raven- 
ous beasts and venomous reptiles with the omnipotence 
and beneficence of the Creator and Euler of the world, 
since they were designed to serve as types and symbols 
of spiritual truths, and therefore held an important 
place in the system of redemption and consequently 
in the economy of the universe.* Still more interesting 
and inexplicable from a psychological point of view is 
the fact that not only rude tribes, but also highly civi- 
lized pagan and Christian nations have treated animals, 
otherwise deemed irrational, as though they were re- 
sponsible for their actions, by placing them on a footing 
of equality with human beings as malefactors. Accord- 
ing to the Mosaic law, an ox that gored a man or woman 
that they die was stoned, and this enactment has been 
often cited as a precedent by Christian tribunals in 
mediasval and even modern times in order to justify the 
execution of homicidal beasts. In Montenegro and other 
countries of eastern Europe horses, pigs, and horned cat- 

* This subject has been fully treated in the author's Animal 
Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture, published by William 
Heinemann in London and Henry Holt & Co. in New York. 



ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 13 

tie have been tried for murder and condemned to death. 
by criminal courts within the last half century. The 
highest ecclesiastical authorities have deigned to put 
the meanest vermin under ban, and not deemed it 
derogatory to their dignity to hold the terrors of ex- 
communication over pernicious and disobedient locusts 
and slugs and vine-fretters."^ This treatment of the 
lower animals would necessarily imply that their actions 
were regarded as justiciable, and that they stood in cer- 
tain legal and therefore moral relations to mankind; 
for all law is ultimately based upon a more or less im- 
perfect recognition of ethical principles, of which it 
aims to be the statutory expression. 

But if animals may be rendered liable to judicial 
punishment for injuries done to man, one would natu- 
rally infer that they should also enjoy legal protection 
against human cruelty. It was a long time, however, 
before even the most enlightened nations reached this 
conclusion and began to form societies for its enforce- 
ment, and to give it practical efficiency by legislative 
enactments. It was in 1780 that Jeremy Bentham, 
in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and 
Legislation and Principles of Penal Law, urged the 
duty of recognising and maintaining the rights of ani- 
mals and asked, "Why should the law refuse its pro- 
tection to any sensitive being? The time will come," 
he added, " when humanity will extend its mantle over 
everything which breathes. We have begun by attend- 
ing to the condition of slaves; we shall finish by soften- 

* For authentic accounts of such proceedings, see the author's 
work on The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of 
Animals, published by William Heinemann in London and Henry 
Holt & Co. in New York. 



14 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

ing that of all animals which assist our labours or sup- 
ply our wants." The ethical corollaries to Darwin's 
doctrine of the origin of species and to his theory of 
development through descent under the modifying in- 
fluences of environment and natural selection have 
already passed these bounds of beneficence not only by 
demanding the mitigation of cruelty to slaves, but also 
by the abolition of slavery, and not only by inculcating 
the kind treatment of animals by individuals, but also 
by asserting the principle of animals' rights and the 
necessity of vindicating them by imposing judicial pun- 
ishments for their violation. Penal laws having this 
object in view, but at first confined to the protection 
of neat cattle, were enacted in England as early as 
1822; a little later they were made to include all do- 
mestic animals, and have been now greatly enlarged 
and adopted by nearly all civilized nations. 

Only in countries like Spain, which are still gov- 
erned by the antiquated metaphysical teachings and 
narrow moral theories of a mediaeval hierarchy, has the 
jus animalium as yet found no place in codes of ethics 
or systems of jurisprudence. Even in Protestant lands, 
notwithstanding the distinctively humanitarian tenden- 
cies of the revival of learning and the reformation of 
religion in the sixteenth century, the clergy as a body 
has opposed every attempt to vindicate the rights of ani- 
mals on scientific and zoopsychological grounds as con- 
trary to the teaching of Scripture. The German theo- 
logian Hettinger, in his Apology for Christianity, does 
not hesitate to denounce all such efforts to restrict 
^ the tyranny of man over the brute creation as the 
" ogling of materialists with beasts, which they seek 
to elevate merely for the purpose of degrading hu- 



ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 15 

manity." No accusation could be more absurd; a cor- 
rect conception of the origin and evolution of man 
and his kinship with the lower forms of life is essential 
to the proper appreciation of his dignity and destiny, 
and the full comprehension of his peculiar place in 
Nature. In this process of development it is impos- 
sible to separate psychical forces from physical factors, 
and to determine how far the faculties of the soul are 
dependent for their existence and exercise upon the 
structure of the body, inasmuch as we have no knowl- 
edge of the former except in organic association with 
the latter. According to the Neoherbartian philoso- 
pher Hermann Lotze, " all souls, considered as purely 
spiritual entities, are perfectly congenious or like- 
natured in perception, emotion, and will; but if the 
soul is incarnated in the body of an ape, it becomes an 
ape-soul, while in the body of a man it becomes a man- 
soul and mounts up to humanity. Souls are not dif- 
ferent in themselves, but only in the degree of their 
development, and this depends upon the sum of the 
combined and varied excitations, which are conveyed 
to them. The more completely endowed and mani- 
foldly equipped is the physical organism, the more 
perfect will be the soul, and this different grade of 
perfection constitutes the specific difference of the 
soul." This statement would seem to imply the creation 
and arbitrary distribution of souls, the exhibition of 
whose powers is dependent upon the physical condi- 
tions in which they chance to be placed. It would be 
more correct to assume that the soul gradually creates 
these conditions and produces a vehicle more highly 
organized, and therefore better suited to give line and 
scope to its full and free activity by diminishing the 



le EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

number and force of the predispositions and prede- 
terminations, to which the nervous system of the lower 
animals is subjected. The immense intellectual dis- 
parity between a man of genius and a catarrhine ape 
is due to the accumulation of anatomical variations, 
so slight in their beginnings as to be hardly percep- 
tible. This is especially true of the brain as the cen- 
tral organ of the nervous system, the increase of the 
surface of which through the multiplication of the folds 
and the deepening of the furrows marks the growth of in- 
telligence and measures the increase of mental capacity. 
Other physical changes contribute to the same result: 
the assumption of an erect posture through the 
straightening of the legs and the formation of the firm, 
but elastic arch of the foot, thereby giving greater 
freedom of movement to the head and also to the hands 
as organs devoted exclusively to tact and prehension; 
the wider range and finer discrimination of the senses 
of sight, hearing, taste, and smell; and the superior 
flexibility of the glottis essential to articulate speech, 
all of which enable man to attain a more complete 
and exact knowledge — first, of his own body and sec- 
ondly of the outer world — than it is possible for any 
lower animal to acquire. 

But it would be wholly foreign to the purpose of 
this introduction to discuss the origin and nature of 
spiritual endowments, and the extent of their causal 
connection or correlation with physical characteristics; 
it suffices to show that the development of the former 
proceeds pari pasu with the development of the latter. 
In the primitive or pithecoid stage of humanity pre- 
hension was undoubtedly a more valuable and indis- 
pensable aid to comprehension than it is to-day; and 



ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 17 

the synonymy of a thin skin with a sensitive soul is the 
metaphorical survival of the actual workings of cause 
and effect in the earliest history of the race. But 
whatever may be the nature and extent of the inter- 
dependence between these physical and psychical ele- 
ments, the development is everywhere a continuous 
one, with no break in the series of countless concatena- 
tions and marvellous adaptations of means to ends, 
by which the grand result is attained. The turning 
point in this endless and uninterrupted process of evo- 
lution, the point at which the beast ceases and the 
man begins, is where the soul is no longer the me- 
nial, but asserts its supremacy as the master of the 
body. 

Eesearches in comparative psychology, taken in its 
widest sense as comprizing mental processes in the lower 
animals as well as in the lowest races of mankind, prove 
conclusively that even the simplest organisms are en- 
dowed with a certain degree of consciousness and so- 
called "general intelligence," as is evident from the 
analogy of their actions with those of human beings. 
Darwin affirms that " even the headless oyster seems 
to profit by experience," and Eomanes maintains that 
the movements of an animalcule like the amoeba in- 
dicate an intentional adaptation of means to ends; but 
the exercise of this power implies rationality as distin- 
guished from that unconscious and involuntary im- 
pulse to action known as instinct. That the trans- 
formation of actions implying free intelligence into 
instinctive actions resulting in hereditary tendencies is 
constantly going on, and plays an important part even 
in the earliest stages of psychical evolution, there can 
be no question. In this respect the growth of instincts 



18 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

in the lower animals is analogous to the formation of 
habits in man. 

This subject^ however, has been so fully treated 
in the second part of the present volume that it is 
hardly necessary to make further reference to it here, 
except to point out its moral bearings. The measure 
of our duty towards lower organisms is determined by 
the degree of their mental development, or, as the 
German philosopher Krause has expressed it, " every 
creature endowed with a soul is also endowed with 
rights." The only firm foundation of animal ethics 
is animal psychology. It is through the portal of 
spiritual kinship, erected by modern evolutional sci- 
ence, that beasts and birds, " our elder brothers,'' as 
Herder calls them, enter into the temple of justice 
and enjoy the privilege of sanctuary against the wanton 
or unwitting cruelty hitherto authorized by the as- 
sumptions and usurpations of man. 

It may be stated, in conclusion, that the contents of 
the present volume consist chiefly of articles which were 
originally printed in The Popular Science Monthly, The 
Atlantic Monthly, and The Unitarian Eeview, and 
which, after having been thoroughly revised and consid- 
erably expanded, are now offered to the public in a 
more convenient and more permanent form. A bibli- 
ography is appended, embracing the principal sources of 
information, and including also a number of works op- 
posed to the author's views. The reader is thus aided 
in extending his studies, and by acquainting himself with 
the results of the latest researches enabled to form an 
independent judgment. 



I. 

EVOLUTIONAL ETELCS. 



CHAPTEE I. 

THE ETHICS OF TEIBAL SOCIETY. 

Limitations of the world of the primitive man. Relativity of geo- 
graphical ideas. Survival of these conceptions in language. 
Ethnocentric ethics. The brotherhood of blood. Lactantius's 
theory of duty compared with the cosmopolitanism of Menan- 
der, Cicero, and Marcus Aurelius. General outlawry of aliens 
mitigated by the sacredness of hospitality. Spartan distrust 
and hatred of strangers. Tokens and tallies of friendship 
among Greeks and Romans. Supposititious kinship of tribal 
chiefs as a second stage in the growing conception of human 
brotherhood. Outcroppings of tribal ethics in the lower strata 
of civilized society. Clannish perversion of justice in Swit- 
zerland. Traces of this spirit in ancient French and German 
legislation. Old English alien laws a relic of savagery. Grad- 
ual recognition of the rights of foreigners in modern states. 
Insularism in British treaties of extradition. The tribe older 
than the family as shown by the social organization of anthro- 
poid apes. Transition from nomadic to sedentary life. In- 
fluence of woman in effecting this change. Dwarfs and crip- 
ples as inventors. Why artificers in mythology are lame. 
Remarks of Mr. Maine on the supersession of tribal by terri- 
torial sovereignty. The Indo-Aryan as a " nigger." Weak- 
ness of race feeling in the United States. Strongest mani- 
festations of it in the least cultivated portions of the country, 
toward the negroes in the South and Chinese in the West. 
The right of voluntary expatriation. Appeals to ethnic an- 
19 



20 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

tipathies for political purposes : Latin Union, Panslavism, 
Panteutonism, and Anti-Semitism. Marriage of kin among 
the ancient Persians and Hebrews. Long survival of it as the 
sacred privilege of priests and kings. 

The world of the primitive man was bounded by 
the circle of his vision. He regarded the horizon as 
a fixed line which separated the earth from the sky, 
and which it would be possible for him to reach by 
going far enough. He did not deem it less real because 
it unfortunately always eluded his search, like the 
fabulous pot of gold which, according to popular su- 
perstition, lies buried at the point where the rainbow 
rests on the ground. In like manner the barbarian of 
to-day has no conception of the fact that the line of 
junction of earth and sky has no real existence, but 
is " all in his eye.^' 

Indeed, it is but recently that man has learned to 
appreciate aright the wholly subjective character and 
significance of the terms north, south, east, and west 
as applied to places on the globe, and to recognise the 
relativity of all his geographical ideas, inasmuch as 
these are dependent for their accuracy and exactness 
upon the position of the speaker. It is one of the rare 
achievements of high culture, and has always been 
the prerogative of exceptionally thoughtful minds, to 
be able to distinguish between the apparent and the 
actual, to keep mental conceptions free from the in- 
fluences of optical illusions, and not to be deceived 
by the surprises and sophistries of the senses. 

An old English legend entitled The Lyfe of Adam, 
which has been preserved in a manuscript of the four- 
teenth century, relates how " Adam was made of oure 
lord god in the place that Jhesus was borne in, that 



THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 21 

is to seye in the cite of Bethleem, which is the myddel 
of the erthe." It then goes on to state that the first 
man was made ont of dust taken from the four corners 
of the earth, which meet in Bethlehem, and that he was 
called by a name composed of the four principal planets: 
thus he was formed as a microcosm, the miniature 
counterpart and organic epitome of the universe, the 
synopsis and symbol of all created things. 

There is a tendency in every savage tribe and iso- 
lated people to regard the portion of the earth which 
it happens to inhabit, and especially the spot which is 
the cradle of the race or around which its sacred 
traditions cluster, as not only the political and religious 
but also as the physical center of the world. Such 
were Jerusalem to the Jews and imperial and papal 
Rome, urhs et orbis, to the ancient Romans and medi- 
eval Romanists; such has Benares been from time 
immemorial to multitudes of Hindus, and such is 
Mecca to-day to millions of Moslems. Before the dis- 
coveries of the Western hemisphere, made by Colum- 
bus and his compeers, not even the most enlightened 
peoples had any proper sense of their relations to the 
rest of mankind, either morally or geographically. 
International ethics and comities began with the growth 
of clearer and more correct ethnical notions, and have 
always kept pace with it. The knowledge of the ro- 
tundity of the earth gave a strong and permanent im- 
pulse in this direction, and has contributed not a little 
to the recognition of the equal rights of all races of 
mankind. 

The language of every civilized nation contains 
curious survivals of the primitive conceptions which 
sprung out of what might be called the self-conceited 



22 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

and self-centered spirit of the savage. It is interest- 
ing to note how a single people, emerging from barba- 
rism and taking the lead in civilization at an early 
period, imposes its forms of speech, and especially its 
geographical terms, upon after ages and upon remote 
races of men for whom they have really no meaning. 
We still speak of certain countries as the Levant and 
the Orient, the AvaToXrj of the Greeks, but these desig- 
nations have no significance except for the dwellers 
on the shores of the Mediterranean, with whom they 
originated. So, too, Asia means etymologically the 
land of the rising sun and Europe the land of the set- 
ting sun, and these names expressed the actual posi- 
tion of the two continents in their relation to the 
Greeks. But to an American, and especially to a Cali- 
fornian, Europe is an Eastern and Asia a Western con- 
tinent, and these strictly ethnocentric appellations 
would be wholly unsuitable and extremely confusing 
were it not for the fact that their etymology has become 
obscured and their primitive signification been forgot- 
ten, or is at least lost sight of and ignored, so that they 
are now mere arbitrary terms or distinguishing signs, 
with no suggestion of the geographical direction or 
situation of the regions to which they are applied, 
just as we speak of Chester, Edinburgh, Oxford, Ber- 
lin, or Munich without thinking of a Eoman camp. 
King Edwin's castle, a ford for oxen, a frontier fortress, 
or a community of monks; and christen a child George, 
Albert, or Alexander without intending him to be a 
tiller of the soil, or wishing to imply that he is of 
noble birth, or will distinguish himself as a defender 
of men. All such proper names denote particular 
places or persons, but have wholly ceased to connote, 



THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 23 

as the scholastic philosophers were wont to say, the 
qualities or attributes which were at first associated 
with them and brought them into use. 

The Chinese call their country the middle realm 
(Chung-Jcu'e) or the flower of the middle (Chang-hua), 
thus characterizing it as the central and choicest por- 
tion of the earth, in distinction from the savage wastes 
inhabited by savage men outside of the Great Wall 
(Wan-U-ch^ang-chHng). The Jews looked upon them- 
selves as the chosen people, set apart as Yisrml, or 
champions of the true God, and lumped all other tribes 
of men together as go'im, gentiles, poor pagan folks, 
who had no rights which a child of Abraham was 
bound to respect. The Greeks divided all mankind 
into two classes, Hellenes and barbarians; the latter 
were also called dyXcoTTot — i. e., tongueless — because 
they did not speak Greek. Aristophanes applied the 
term ^ap^apoi even to birds, on account of the inar- 
ticulateness and unintelligibleness of their chirpings 
and chatterings. It is from Greek usage that we have 
come to designate any corruption of our own language 
by the introduction of foreign or unfit words as a 
barbarism. The persistence of this primitive tribal con- 
ceit is shown by the fact that a people in many respects 
so cosmopolitan as the English can pronounce no severer 
censure and condemnation of the manners, customs, 
and opinions of other nations than to call them un- 
English, and really fancy that an indelible stigma at- 
taches itself to this epithet. Not long since several 
British tourists in Italy actually protested against some 
foolish, perhaps, but otherwise harmless features of the 
Roman carnival, and demanded their suppression on the 
ground that they were "thoroughly un-English," thus vir- 



24 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

tually assuming that no amusements should be tolerated 
on the Tiber which were not customary on the Thames. 
It is due to the same feeling that the word " outland- 
ish " has gradually grown obsolete in its original sense, 
and is now used exclusively as an expression of con- 
tempt. Slavonic (slovene) is derived from slovo (speech), 
and means people with articulate language; whereas 
the Slavic nations call the Germans Nemici, which 
signifies speechless, dumb, and therefore barbarian. 

Geocentric astronomy and ethnocentric geography 
have been relegated long ago to that " limbo large and 
broad " which is the predestined receptacle of all ex- 
ploded errors and illusions engendered by human vanity 
and ignorance; but from the bondage of ethnocentric 
ethics, manifesting itself in national prejudices and 
prepossessions, and often posing as a paragon of virtue 
in the guise of patriotism, even the most advanced 
and enlightened peoples have not yet fully emancipated 
themselves. The Hebrews thought they were doing 
the will of their tribal god (the personification of the 
tribal conscience) by borrowing jewels and fine raiment 
from their too-obliging Egyptian acquaintances and then 
running away with them. That this mean abuse of 
neighbourly confidence and civility was not a mere 
momentary freak of fraudulence or sudden succumb- 
ing to temptation, but the outcome of settled prin- 
ciples of morality and a general rule of policy, is evi- 
dent from the approval with which it is recorded, as well 
as from the laws subsequently enacted, which permitted 
them to take usury of aliens and to sell murrain meat 
to the strangers in their gates. 

This is the kind of ethics which finds expression 
in the legislation of all barbaric and semi-civilized races, 



THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 25 

from the Eskimos to the Hottentots. The Balantis of 
Africa punish with death a theft committed to the 
detriment of a tribesman, but encourage and reward 
thievery from other tribes. According to Csesar^s state- 
ment (De Bello Gallico, lib. vi, c. 23), the Germans did 
not deem it infamous to steal outside of the precincts 
of their own village, but rather advocated it as a means 
of keeping the young men of the community in train- 
ing and rendering them vigilant and adroit. But we 
need not go to African kraals or American wigwams 
or primeval Teutonic forests for illustrations of this 
rule of conduct. Quite recently a Frenchman suc- 
ceeded as commis-voyageur in swindling a number of 
German tradesmen out of large sums of money, and was 
applauded for his exploit by Parisian shopkeepers, who 
readily condoned his similar but slighter offences 
against themselves on account of the satisfaction they 
derived from the more serious injury done to their 
hereditary foes on the Ehine. This incident proves 
how easy it is for the primitive feeling of clanship, 
euphemistically styled patriotic sentiment, to put in 
abeyance all the acquisitions of culture and set the 
most elementary principles of honesty and morality 
at defiance. International conscience is a product of 
modern civilization, but it is still a plant of very feeble 
growth — a sickly shrub, whose fruits are easily blasted, 
and for the most part drop and decay before they 
ripen. 

Sir Henry Sumner Maine, in his Lectures on the 
Early History of Institutions, has shown with admi- 
rable force and suggestiveness that rude and savage 
tribes uniformly regard consanguinity as the only basis 
of friendship and moral obligation and the sole cement 



26 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

of society. The original human horde was held together 
by the same tie of blood-relationship that produces 
and preserves the consciousness of unity in the animal 
herd or causes ants and bees to lead an orderly and 
mutually helpful life in swarms. In all these com- 
munities the outsider is looked upon as an outlaw; 
whoever is not a kinsman is a foe, and may be assailed, 
despoiled, enslaved, or slain with impunity. Indeed, 
it is considered not only a right but also an imperative 
duty to injure the alien by putting him to death or re- 
ducing him to servitude. The instinct of self-preserva- ■ 
tion asserts itself in this form with gregarious mam- 
mals and insects; and all primitive associations of men 
are founded upon this principle and cohere by force 
of this attraction. 

A superstitious regard for blood pervades all early 
ideas and institutions of mankind. The ancient He- 
brews were forbidden to eat the blood of a slaughtered 
animal, because the blood is the life; and the ortho- 
dox Israelite still clings to this notion and will not 
partake of butcher's meat that is not gosh or cere- 
monially clean — i. e., from which the blood has not 
been carefully drained off, although he knows that this 
process of ritual purification deprives the flesh of much 
of its succulence and nutritive value as food. 

It is a widely diffused belief among aboriginal and 
lower races that the blood is the seat of the soul; hence 
blood-relationship is synonymous with soul-relationship. 
The child was also recognised as a blood-relation of the 
mother, but not of the father. Out of this concep- 
tion, of consanguinity arose the custom of descent in 
the female line, whereby the children of a man's sister 
became his heirs to the exclusion of his own offspring. 



THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 27 

Curiously enough this notion is confirmed, to some 
extent, by modern science, which would ascribe to the 
female the function of conserving and transmitting 
the permanent qualities and typical characteristics of 
the race, whereas the influence of the male in propaga- 
tion is variable, innovating, and revolutionary, and 
tends to produce deviations from the hereditary norm. 

Cannibalism, too, as a tribal rite, originated in the 
belief that the soul resides in the blood, and that by 
drinking the blood of the bravest foeman their courage, 
cunning, and other distinctive and desirable traits may 
be acquired and thus serve to increase the fighting force 
and ejB&ciency of the tribe. 

Brotherhood was also created artificially or cere- 
monially by mingling a few drops of the blood of two 
persons in a cup of wine and drinking it. Each re- 
ceived into his veins a portion of the other's blood, 
and thus they became blood-related and were bound 
by the same mutual obligations as they would have 
been if the same mother had given them birth. The 
heroes of old German sagas are represented as drink- 
ing brotherhood in this manner; it is thus that Gun- 
ther and Siegfried swear inviolable friendship and 
fidelity in Wagner's Gotterdammerung; and German 
students, in the festive enthusiasm of a Commers, are 
fond of imitating their mythical forefathers in the 
solemn celebration of this mystic rite. 

It is interesting to note the rhetorical and meta- 
phorical survivals of this once strong conviction. In 
referring to political parties in France the Journal 
des Debats recently remarked: " It is not true that 
our nation consists of two nations — the heirs of the 
Emigration and those of the Revolution. This dis- 



28 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

tinction no longer exists. The last vestiges of it have 
been obliterated on the battlefields^ where all French- 
men have mingled their blood. France is henceforth 
one and indivisible." 

The noble sentiment expressed by the Greek comic 
poet Menander and handed down to us in the lan- 
guage of Terence, his Roman imitator, "I am a 
man, and regard nothing human as alien to me/' 
was doubtless shared by many individual thinkers of 
antiquity, especially among the Greek Stoics and their 
Roman disciples. Cicero, who may be taken as one 
of the most eminent representatives of this ethical 
school, lays great stress upon "love of mankind" 
(caritas generis liumani), in distinction from the love 
of kindred or countrymen. " A man," he says, " should 
seek to promote the welfare of every other man,' who- 
ever he may be, for the simple reason that he is a 
man " ; and declares that this principle is the bond 
of universal society and the foundation of all law. He 
returns to this topic again and again, and never tires 
of enforcing this doctrine as fundamental in his treatises 
on duties (De Officiis), on the highest good and evil 
(De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum), and on laws (De 
Legibus). That he regarded this broad, cosmopolitan 
view as a new departure in ethics is evident from his 
remark that " he whom we now call a foreigner {peregri- 
num) was called an enemy Qiostis) by our ancestors." . 

The distinguished Christian apologist Lucius Lac- 
tantius bases the duty of human kindness upon the 
hypothesis of human kinship, thus reviving and am- 
plifying the old tribal notion which limits moral obli- 
gation to those who can claim a common progenitor. 
" For, if we all derive our origin from one man, whom 



THE ETHICS OP TRIBAL SOCIETY. 29 

God created, we are plainly of one blood; and there- 
fore it must be deemed the greatest wickedness to hate 
a man, even though he be guilty." He adds that " we 
are to put aside enmities and to soothe and allay the 
anger of those who are inimical to us by reminding 
them of their relationship. . . . On account of this 
bond of brotherhood God teaches us never to do evil, 
but always to do good." He also quotes a passage from 
the Epicurean Lucretius to the effect that " we are 
all sprung from a heavenly seed and have all of us 
the same father " ; and draws from this statement the 
conclusion that "they who injure men are to be ac- 
counted as savage beasts." 

Lactantius has been surnamed the Christian Cicero, 
but the fundamental principle of his ethics, as formu- 
lated in his Divine Institutions, is in its motive char- 
acter and moral elevation far below the height attained 
four centuries earlier by his pagan prototype. The re- 
sults of their teachings, practically applied, were equally 
cosmopolitan; inasmuch as Lactantius based his theory 
of duty on the Hebrew legend of the origin and descent 
of man, and thus enlarged his essentially tribal system 
of ethics so as to embrace the whole human race. 

Marcus Aurelius defines his own ethical and hu- 
manitarian standpoint with his wonted epigrammatic 
terseness: "As an Antonine, my country is Eome; as 
a man, it is the world." Unfortunately, the liberal 
spirit of the philosopher, even when he happens to sit 
upon a throne, seldom exerts any direct and decisive 
influence in liberalizing the minds of the masses of 
mankind. Homer praises -the kind and sympathetic 
heart of him who treats the stranger as a brother. But 
this fine sentiment does not change but rather con- 



30 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

firms the fact that, as a rule, strangers were not thus 
treated in the Homeric age. As a general statement 
it remains true that in ancient times aliens had no legal 
rights whatsoever, and that international relations, so 
far as they existed at all, were relations of hostility. 

But this outlawry de jure was mitigated de facto by 
investing the rite of hospitality with a certain sacred- 
ness. Such is still the case with all savage and semi- 
civilized tribes, as, for example, with the Bedouins, 
who hold the person of a guest inviolable, even though 
he may be their deadliest foe. This custom originated 
in the defenceless and helpless condition of the stranger, 
whose alienage placed him beyond the pale of law 
and the sphere of sympathy; it furnished a sort of com- 
pensation for the lack of all natural or conventional 
claims to protection, and thus supplied a temporary 
modus Vivendi, without which intertribal intercourse 
would have been absolutely impossible. 

We have an indication and illustration of this pe- 
culiarity of primitive society in the story of Cain, who, 
as a fratricide, was not only guilty of murder (a matter 
of comparatively small moment in the eyes of the 
aboriginal man), but also of treason against the tribe 
by violating the law of brotherhood fundamental to 
its constitution and essential to its existence; and when, 
by reason of this crime, he was driven out of the 
sheltering circle and sanctuary of his own kith and 
kin and became a fugitive and vagabond in the earth, 
his first feeling was the fear lest he should be slain 
by any stranger who might chance to meet him. The 
Lord is also represented ag recognising the possibility 
of such a catastrophe, and as setting a mark upon him 
in order to avert it. 



THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 31 

The stipulation contained in the Hebrew code, as 
well as in the code of other Eastern nations, which 
made it the duty of a man to wed his brother's widow, 
provided the first union was childless, and to raise up 
seed to the deceased, was only a modification of poly- 
andry and differed from the conjugal relations still 
in vogue among the Thibetans in the fact that the 
possession of the same wife was successive instead of 
simultaneous. Both of these matrimonial customs are 
survivals of the earliest form of marriage, which was 
not individual, but tribal. We have a relic of this 
primitive kind of wedlock among the Californian In- 
dians, who practised promiscuous sexual intercourse, 
so far as the members of the same tribe were con- 
cerned; the woman was regarded as faithless or adulter- 
ous only when she cohabited with a man belonging 
to another tribe. 

The Greeks, with all their superior culture, never 
became as a people sufficiently enlightened to lay aside 
their deep distrust and depreciation of foreigners. 
Sparta was notoriously hostile to strangers (6;j^^/)6|ez/09, 
or guest-hating), and how impossible it was for even 
a cultivated Athenian to look at the world at large 
from any but a strictly Hellenic point of view is curi- 
ously and comically illustrated in the drama in which 
^schylus glorifies the battle of Salamis, where the 
Persians are made to speak of themselves as barbarians 
balked of their purpose, and to describe their lamenta- 
tions over their defeat as dismal barbaric wailings. 

It is a somewhat surprising and quite significant 
concession to Greek arrogance that Plautus should use 
the phrase vortere harhare in the sense of turning or 
translating into Latin. It is possible, however, that 



32 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

he may have borrowed this phrase from Philemon and 
other Greek playwrights, whose comedies he imitated 
with more or less freedom, but always with a touch 
of native genius. Still, we know that the Eomans 
were uniformly called barbarians, and seem to have 
recognised the correctness of this appellation down to 
the age of Augustus, when the term began to be ap- 
plied chiefly, if not exclusively, to the Germans. As 
our earliest information concerning the Germanic peo- 
ples was derived from Greek and Eoman sources, we 
have been misled by the use of this depreciatory desig- 
nation to think of them as wild and lawless hordes, 
and to form a wholly false conception of the grade 
and quality of their civilization. 

When individuals of different race or nationality 
formed friendships they were wont to confirm the pact 
by an exchange of tokens, which remained as heirlooms 
in their respective families, and were prized by their 
descendants as pledges of mutually kind and hospitable 
treatment. The duty of helpfulness was, in such cases, 
quite as imperative as is the vow of vendetta, which 
passes as a precious inheritance of hatred from Corsican 
father to son. These tokens were called by the Greeks 
(TVfjL^oXa, and by the Eomans tesserce Jiospitales, and, 
although they were eventually superseded by better 
and more comprehensive methods and ended by play- 
ing only the frivolous part of a sentimental pastime in 
social life, like the modern philopena, they had original- 
ly a more serious purpose and were of no small im- 
portance as means of promoting intertribal intercourse 
and thus encouraging trade and leading to the estab- 
lishment of commercial treaties. 

Another step toward the realization of the con- 



THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 33 

ception of human brotherhood was the custom estab- 
lished at a very early period whereby chiefs of tribes 
came to address each other as kinsmen and members 
of one family. This assumption of consanguinity, 
which originated in the desire of dynasties to strengthen 
their position and to perpetuate their power, naturally 
led to increase of friendly intercourse and to frequent 
intermarriages, so that they finally became in fact what 
they at first claimed to be by a polite and politic fiction. 
Traces of this usage are found in the oldest records 
of royalty. Among the treasures of the Berlin and 
British Museums are preserved two hundred and forty- 
one tablets of cuneiform inscriptions containing letters 
written to Amenophis III and Amenophis lY of Egypt 
by Burnaburiash, King of Babylonia, and Dushratta, 
King of Mesopotamia, which show that, at least six- 
teen centuries before the Christian era, " dear brother " 
was the ceremonial title of salutation which monarchs 
were wont to use in their epistolary correspondence. 
This feigning of a common lineage still survives among 
crowned heads, and the vilest plebian adventurer who, 
by force or fraud, gets himself proclaimed king or 
emperor is admitted to the select circle of sovereigns 
and greeted as " dear cousin." 

Principles, onc6 grown obsolete, are denounced as 
prejudices; religious beliefs, which have been sup- 
planted by superior creeds, are scoffed at as supersti- 
tions; and dethroned deities haunt the imagination 
of their former worshipper as demons. In hke man- 
ner, the lower classes of civilized communities cor- 
respond, in a measure, to the lower races, and reflect 
atavistically the ideas and passions of primitive man; 
and in periods of great social and political upheaval 



34 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

we are often rudely brought face to face with tumultu- 
ous masses of these strata of palaeozoic humanity vio- 
lently and unpleasantly thrown to the surface. It 
crops out in the English boor, who at the sight of a 
stranger is ever ready to " ^eave 'arf a brick at 'im," 
and would deem the neglect of this duty a treasonable 
lack of local patriotism and loyalty to time-honored 
tradition; in the Cretan herdsman, who instinctively 
seizes his cudgel whenever a traveller in trousers passes 
by; and in the Egyptian fellah, who teaches his chil- 
dren to spit at every man with a hat on and cry out: 
"Fa nasrdmy! Yd Tchinzir!, you Nazarene! 
you pig! " 

The publican, in some parts of southern Italy, is 
still disposed to reckon with the foreigner as a foe, a 
forlorn vagabond, whom it is his native-born privilege 
to spoil. The blood of his ancestor, the brigand, courses 
in his veins, and his first impulse is to plunder the 
wayfarer. Prudence and the police may curb this pro- 
genital, predatorial proclivity; but the self-restraint al- 
ways costs an effort, and, as a compromise with his 
instinctive feelings, instead of relieving the guest of 
his purse by force, he robs him of an undue portion 
of its contents by adding two or three hundred per 
cent to the usual price of fare and lodgment. 

In many cantons of Switzerland, and especially 
in the Bernese highlands, we have the spectacle of a 
whole people apparently born and bred to consider 
mountain passes, romantic valleys, glaciers, and water- 
falls as so many traps for curious and unwary tourists, 
and to prize sublime scenery merely as a ready-made 
snare to catch coots, dupes, gulls, boobies, and other 
varieties of too confiding summer birds of passage, 



THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 35 

which the categorizing mind of the German has re- 
duced to two essentially distinct but closely connected 
classes, Bergfexen and Sommerfrischler. 

This clannish spirit even invades and desecrates the 
courts of justice^, and the Helvetian Themis is espe- 
cially notorious for her propensity to blink the legal 
rights of the case and to tip the balance in favour of 
her cantonal or federal compatriots as opposed to the 
stranger within her gates. 

In France the droit d'aubaine or jus albinagii con- 
fiscated to the crown the property of all aliens who 
died within the limits of the realm, to the exclusion 
of the natural heirs, unless these happened to be the 
king's subjects. This barbarous law was abolished by 
a decree of the National Assembly on the 6th of August, 
1790, but was re-enacted twelve years later and incor- 
porated in the Code Napoleon, modified, however, by 
a clause making the testamentary capacity of aliens 
dependent upon reciprocity; in other words, it was 
stipulated that the will of a foreigner should be de- 
clared valid in France, provided the laws of the said 
foreigner's country placed on the same footing the 
will of a Frenchman deceased within its jurisdiction. 
On the 14th of July, 1819, the droit d^auhaine was 
finally abrogated throughout the entire kingdom, after 
having been already considerably mitigated and par- 
tially annulled by the municipal authorities of Lyons 
and other industrial and commercial cities, which found 
this relic of mediaeval legislation a serious obstruction 
to foreign trade. 

Akin to this system of right was the German 
Wildfangsrecht or jus wildfan-giatus, also known as jus 
IcoTbeherlii, which, as the term implies, accorded to 



36 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

human beings the privilege which game laws guarantee 
to the quarry^ namely, that of being legally hunted. 
Kolbenrecht is equivalent to club law. An old and often 
quoted proverb, Kolbengericht und Faustrecht ward nie 
schlecht — the law of the strong was never yet wrong — is 
the cynical expression of protesting submission to the 
inevitable, recognised as outrageous. It is the same 
bitter sarcasm that mocks at unjust and irresistible 
power in the popular saying, " Might makes right " ; 
it is despair taking refuge and finding relief in ironical 
humour, which turns the first principles of ethics topsy- 
turvy. 

Wildfangsrecht was originally applied to fugitive 
serfs and to strangers, but was soon extended to bastards 
and bachelors, gleemen and professional champions in 
ordeals by battle, all of whom lived more or less in a 
state of outlawry as to their persons and property, and 
could, under certain circumstances, be reduced to the 
condition of chattels. Foreigners who could prove 
the place of their nativity were subjected to a poll 
tax (chevage) for the protection vouchsafed to them 
by the reeve or Vogt, and were therefore called Vogt- 
leute. In the Canton de Vaud and elsewhere in Switzer- 
land this pollage is still levied as permis d'etahlissement, 
a lingering vestige of mediaeval extortion which the 
most enlightened European governments have now 
abolished. Persons of unknown origin were treated 
as waifs (epaves), the mere flotson and waveson on the 
drifting tide of humanity, and were liable to be seized 
and envassaled by any petty lord on whose territory 
they chanced to strand. Perhaps a diligent study of 
these old laws might suggest to American legislators 
some drastic means of purging the country of tramps. 



THE ETHICS OP TRIBAL SOCIETY. 37 

In " the good old time " in England any alien could 
be arrested and punished for the crimes and misde- 
meanors of other alieng, although having no complicity 
with them. They were all lumped together as a class, 
any individual of which was liable to be apprehended 
and held accountable for the debts incurred or for the 
offences committed by any other individual of the class. 

The idea of justice implied by such a proceeding 
corresponds to that entertained by the aboriginal Aus- 
tralian or American, who, when his wife dies, feels 
himself in duty bound to kill the wife of some member 
of another tribe, and avenges an injury inflicted upon 
him by a white man by sla3dng the first white man 
he happens to meet. The loss or offence, whatever it 
may be, is tribal, and is satisfied with tribal expiation 
or retaliation. 

A case of this kind occurred quite recently in Da- 
kota. A Sioux Indian, on the death of his squaw, went 
forth from his lodge with his gun and shot a missionary 
who was passing by. The red man had no grudge 
against the white man as an individual; on the con- 
trary, he was personally fond of his victim, from whom 
he had received many acts of kindness; but the vow 
of vengeance was as sacred as that made by Jephthah 
the Gileadite, and had to be as religiously kept. 

The old English custom, just referred to as a sur- 
vival of the earliest and crudest conception of tribal 
ethics, prevailed at least as late as the reign of Edward 
III — i. e., till about the middle of the fourteenth century; 
and long after this period it was exceedingly difficult 
to enact and almost impossible to enforce laws for the 
protection of foreigners, so deeply rooted and intense 
was the prejudice against them. Even far down into 



38 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

the eighteenth century they continued to be regarded 
with extreme suspicion, and were often subjected to 
gross indignities, independently of any personal quali- 
ties or any peculiar conduct on their part. The mere 
fact of their alienage sufficed to kindle against them 
the anger of the populace and turn the masses into an 
unruly mob. Quite recently a Frenchman and his wife, 
who were attending a theatre in London near the Strand, 
went to an eating house close by to take some refresh- 
ment during a pause in the play. Very soon they were 
attacked by several persons of the lower class and se- 
verely beaten until they were finally rescued by the 
police. The sole provocation to this sudden assault was 
that they spoke a foreign tongue. This is still the men- 
tal attitude of the cockney, and cockneyism is only a 
local form of philistinism by no means confined to the 
precincts of Bow Bells. 

The laws of Venice, as expounded by Portia in the 
case of Shylock vs. Antonio, discriminated against aliens 
as opposed to citizens in a manner extremely fatal to 
the plaintiff and exceedingly characteristic of medi- 
aeval legislation. 

Under the influence of the political panic caused by 
the excesses of the French Revolution, Lord Grenville 
succeeded, in 1793, in persuading the British Parlia- 
ment to pass an alien bill, in which the spirit of feudal- 
ism reasserted itself; and since the abolition of this 
retrogressive law, which was effected chiefly through 
the enlightened energy of George Canning, the leaders 
of the Tory party have repeatedly endeavoured to re- 
enact it. In every age and every country landed 
aristocracies have always shown a marked tendency to 
narrowness, provincialism, and distrust in their inter- 



THE ETHICS OP TRIBAL SOCIETY. 39 

national relations. Indeed, from time immemorial, 
agricultural communities have been excessively con- 
servative in this respect and hostile to progress; whereas 
commercial states and cities, whose prosperity is in 
proportion to their cosmopolitanism and dependent 
upon it, are naturally philallogeneal (to coin a word 
from the Greek of the Alexandrian patriarch Cyril, 
who unfortunately seldom exemplified in his conduct 
the virtue expressed by the epithet), or friendly to for- 
eigners and easily accessible to influences from with- 
out. 

Even in America, where all portions of the popula- 
tion are more mobile and undergo more rapid and radi- 
cal changes than in other lands, the farmers are noto- 
riously tenacious of old ideas and suspicious of reforma- 
tory movements of all kinds, following their traditions 
and clinging to their prejudices long after artisans 
and other handworkers of the manufacturing centers 
and large cities have cast aside these notions as obsolete 
and injurious. 

All European governments appear to be periodically 
or epidemically affected with spasms of antipathy to 
aliens. France suffered from a particularly severe at- 
tack of this sort just before the Napoleonic coup d'etat, 
and now betrays serious symptoms of a relapse, which 
it is to be hoped do not portend an imperial restoration. 
As a rule, such manifestations may be regarded as evi- 
dences of internal derangement, which is pretty sure 
to break out sooner or later in some violent disorder. 
Knownothingism in the United States was the symp- 
tom of such a crisis, although its indications were at 
that time only partially understood. 

It is but recently, in fact, that civilized nations 



40 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

have rid themselves of the most obnoxious relies of 
ethnocentric prejudice in their legislation — such, for ex- 
ample, as the gabella hereditaria, which discriminated 
against foreigners in matters of inheritance; and the 
detradus 'personalis, which virtually punished emigra- 
tion by the imposition of a heavy fine. These vestiges 
of vassalage were removed from the statute-books of 
the German states in relation to each other by the acts 
of federation of 1815, and have been successively abol- 
ished between Germany and other countries by inde- 
pendent treaties. 

The English law of extradition with other Euro- 
pean powers still refuses to deliver up or to prosecute 
an Englishman who has committed a felony in a foreign 
land, unless the crime has been committed against one 
of his own countrymen. Some years ago a case of this 
kind occurred in Zurich, and still more recently in 
Munich. In the latter instance, one of the burglars, 
although residing in London, proved to be an American 
by birth, and was therefore handed over to the Bavarian 
police, and finally sentenced to ten years' imprison- 
ment, while his English confederate in crime was set 
at liberty. Here we have, as the result of insularism, 
a survival of ethnocentric ethics in its crassest and most 
offensive form, such as one would expect to find only 
among a people still in the tribal stage of develop- 
ment. 

In the volume already cited. Sir Henry Sumner 
Maine not only shows kinship to have been the original 
basis of society, but also indicates the process by which 
mankind may have gradually grown out of this primi- 
tive condition. The head of the family soon became 
through natural increase the head of a clan or tribe. 



THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 41 

The patriarch possessed the authority and exercised 
the functions of a chieftain over his lineal and collateral 
descendants, who were known as his men and were 
called by his name. He was honoured and obeyed 
as their first man, Filrst, or prince, their stem-sire or 
king, an appellation which has nothing to do with per- 
sonal " canning " or cunning, as Carlyle, in his exces- 
sive admiration of human force and faculty, would 
fain make us believe, but refers solely to race (Jcuni). 
The ruler was an ethnarch in the strictest sense of the 
term, and held his position by virtue of his primo- 
genitureship or procreative seniority. 

The correctness of this theory, so far as the genetic 
connection of the tribe with the family is concerned, 
may be questioned. Instead of the former being an 
aggregation or expansion of the latter, it is highly 
probable that the primitive tribe is older than the family 
and the product of promiscuous sexual relations, and 
that families originated in a subsequent process of 
domestic differentiation. Polyandry and the custom of 
tracing descent exclusively in the female line would 
seem to point in this direction. The institution of the 
family, even in its polygamous form, presupposes a 
certain ethical element, which can hardly be predicated 
of primeval barbarism. 

So, too, the most prominent feature in the social 
organization of the anthropoid apes and in all simian 
communities is the troop or tribe under the leadership 
of the most powerful male. A band of orang-outangs is 
doubtless an association of blood-relations, but there is 
no recognition of patriarchal authority as such and 
no evidence of distinct divisions into families. The 
community is a gregarious group of individuals joined 



42 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

in affinity, but not yet separated into single pairs with 
clearly recognised and jealously defended conjugal 
rights; and sovereignty is simply the assertion of su- 
perior force, although this constitution of the simian 
tribe does not entirely exclude the existence and exer- 
cise of moral qualities in the mutual relations of its 
members. 

It is, however, a matter of no moment for the fur- 
ther evolution of society, whether, at the beginning, 
the family expanded into the tribe or was gradually 
differentiated out of it. The fact remains that the 
tribe was held together by the cement of consanguinity, 
and that the authority of the tribal head was derived 
primarily from the respect and reverence due to him 
as common progenitor, aided, of course, by his ability 
to enforce his claims to rulership in case an ambitious 
and rebellious Absalom should be disposed to question 
them. So strong and persistent is this sentiment that, 
even now, the number of a man's noble ancestors is 
supposed to entitle him, by the grace of God, to sover- 
eignty, or to confer upon him some exceptional privi- 
lege and power. 

With the transition from a nomadic to a sedentary 
social state, an important change takes place. No 
sooner has a people acquired fixed habitations and 
established permanent settlements than there arises 
the idea of ownership in the soil, and the chief of the 
tribe becomes the lord of the land. He is no longer 
merely the head of an organized body of roving men, 
but he also claims and exercises jurisdiction over a 
more or less definitely circumscribed district or domain 
and over all persons dwelling within its borders. Tribal 
sovereignty or chieftainship is thus superseded by ter- 



THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 43 

ritorial sovereignty or dorainion, and with this trans- 
formation the state, in the modern sense of the term, 
really begins. 

At this early stage, however, proprietorship in land 
was not individual, but communal. It was the realiza- 
tion, to some extent, of the socialistic ideal of collective 
or governmental ownership of landed property, the 
return to which a modern school of reformers would 
fain persuade themselves and others to regard as a step 
in advance. 

It is also interesting to note that this most impor- 
tant and epoch-making transition from pasturage to 
tillage was due to the initiative and activity of women. 
Every\^ere in the growth of society women have been 
the first agriculturists. While the men were leading 
the life of hunters or herdsmen, with frequent epi- 
sodes of pillage and predatory warfare, women began 
to cultivate the soil and to rear domestic fowls, to spin 
and to weave, and to develop, in a rude way, various 
kinds of industry. This is the condition in which 
we still find all savage and semi-civilized tribes. He- 
rodotus (vol. vi) says of the Thracians, " They regard 
tillage as the most degrading and pillage as the most 
honourable occupation." The savage looks upon all 
forms of manual labour, and especially husbandry, 
as ignoble, and therefore leaves such work to his squaw. 

At first, her efforts in this direction were quite 
ignored and often thwarted by the sudden removal of 
the tribe to another place before she could reap the 
fruits of her toil. The little patch of ground which 
she had planted was deemed of small account, compared 
with the pleasures and products of the chase, and was 
frequently abandoned without hesitation before the 
4 



44 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

meager harvest was ripe. For this reason barley was 
the earliest grain cultivated, because it is the hardiest 
of all grains and matures soonest. It was a long time 
before the fields tilled by women became of suf&cient 
importance, as supplying means of subsistence, to keep 
the tribe settled for a whole season in one spot, or even 
to induce them to return thither in the autumn and 
remain there until the crop was gathered. This semi- 
nomadism was the first step toward a sedentary life 
and the starting point of a higher civilization, and 
woman was the chief agent in its accomplishment, al- 
though unconscious of the immense change which her 
humble efforts were effecting. 

For a similar reason the weakest male members of 
the tribe were the first artificers and mechanical in- 
ventors. Men who were crippled or otherwise incapable 
of waging war and following the chase, if they had not 
been left to perish at their birth, remained at home 
and made hunting implements and weapons of war for 
their more vigourous and valorous tribesmen, and thus 
acquired skill in handicraft, sharpened their wits, and 
developed their inventive faculties. In mythology, the 
gods of the smithy, Hephaestus, Vulcan, and Veland, 
are represented as lame, and the experts in ores and 
workers in metals are dwarfs, gnomes, and creatures 
of stunted growth. These physical peculiarities are not 
mere mythopoeic whimseys and creations of the fancy, 
but correspond to real facts in the primitive history 
of the race, and point to the class of persons who were 
the earliest promoters of the arts. 

The supersession of tribal by territorial sovereignty, 
although radical and permanent, was gradual and 
scarcely perceptible in its character, and did not begin 



THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 45 

to express itself in language till many centuries after 
the change had been fully accomplished. Mediaeval 
and modern history furnish numerous illustrations of 
this process of social evolution and the manner of 
its operation. As Mr. Maine has remarked, there had 
been kings of England and of France long before John 
the Landless and Henry IV assumed respectively these 
official titles; although their predecessors had always 
been styled kings of the English and of the French. 
The Czar, who, while bearing sway as a territorial 
sovereign, preserves more than any other European 
ruler the peculiarities of a tribal chieftain, still calls 
himself Samodershez, or Autocrat of all the Russians, 
and it was perfectly in keeping with the character and 
career of Napoleon I, as a condottiere on a colossal 
scale, that he took the title of " Emperor of the 
French." His interest was centered wholly in the 
army, which he loved and fostered in the same spirit 
that Tamerlane cherished his Mongolian hordes and Era 
Diavolo his band of brigands. The King of Prussia bears 
"the title of " German Emperor " (Deutsclier Kaiser), 
not Emperor of Germany, since the latter would be 
inconsistent with the political existence and integrity 
of the other German states and a manifest usurpation 
of the rights and prerogatives (Hoheitsreclite) of the 
confederated princes and potentates. His imperial 
sovereignty is, therefore, essentially tribal; he is, so 
to speak, the chief of the German confederated mon- 
archs, and exercises territorial sovereignty only as King 
of Prussia. There has been a long succession of Eoman- 
German and German emperors, but never an Emperor 
of Germany. 

A nomadic people, wandering from place to place. 



46 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

is not associated in any sense with tlie soil; the tribe 
remains the same, but not the territory it occupies. 
With the beginning of agriculture and sedentariness 
this relation is reversed. The conception of a nation, 
nowadays, implies fixed or at least well-defined geo- 
graphical boundaries. Changes may take place in the 
character of the inhabitants and in the constitution 
of the government as the result of emigration and 
revolution; individuals and families may disappear 
and be superseded by others of a different stock, but the 
nation remains, as it were, adscripta glehce within cer- 
tain territorial limits and is not destroyed by any ad- 
mixture of foreign with native elements in the popu- 
lation. Mr. Maine states this point very clearly and 
concisely when he says: ^" England was once the coun- 
try which Englishmen inhabited. Englishmen are now 
the people who inhabit England." An East Indian 
by blood may be an Englishman in the modern sense 
of the term as well as an Anglo-Saxon of purest lineage^ 
however earnestly Lord Salisbury may deprecate the 
idea that a Hindu or any other " black man," even 
though he may be, like Dadabhoi Naoroji, a gentleman 
and a scholar, and the peer of the Tory premier him- 
self in political wisdom and ability, should be sent 
to the British Parliament by an English constituency. 
It would seem, therefore, that, even at this late day, 
a man may be her British Majesty's first minister of 
state and yet entertain the notion, which prevailed 
in the days of Warren Hastings and still lingers among 
the subalterns of the colonial service, that an East In- 
dian is a " nigger." 

Nowhere is national feeling stronger and race feel- 
ing weaker than in the United States, where the negro. 



THE ETHICS OF TfilBAL SOCIETY. 47 

notwithstanding the prejudice growing out of his 
former condition of servitude, is as truly an American 
and as fully sensible of this fact as any scion of the 
Pilgrim fathers. It is unquestionable that the old 
Puritan stock is rapidly disappearing from New Eng- 
land, partly through natural extinction and partly 
through westward migration, and is being supplanted 
by Irish and Canadian French; but this circumstance 
does not blot New England from the map nor convert 
it into New Ireland or New France. On the contrary, 
the descendants of the Celtic immigrant are assimilated 
and transmuted by their environment and become New- 
Englanders. The consciousness of what might be called 
common territoriality tends not only to bind together 
and to blend diverse races into that " unity of a people '' 
which constitutes a nation, but also to attenuate and 
to loosen the social and political unions, which are based 
upon common descent, and finally ruptures them alto- 
gether. 

It is also in the United States that the antithesis 
to tribalism has found its strongest expression in legis- 
lation. In an act of Congress, approved July 27, 1868, 
the right of voluntary expatriation is declared to be " a 
natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable 
to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness," and any denial or restriction of 
this right, or question of its validity, is affirmed to be " in- 
consistent with the fundamental principles of the re- 
public." In fact, this enactment is only a reiteration 
and general application of the " self-evident truth " 
upon which the Declaration of Independence was based, 
and to the vindication of which by force of arms our 
Government owes its existence. It is the abrogation of 



48 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

the doetrii],e of personal and perpetual allegiance to the 
sovereign of one's native land, which is a survival of the 
notion, still prevailing among many savage nations, 
that the chieftain is the absolute owner of the mem- 
bers of his tribe and can dispose at will of their serv- 
ices, their property, and their lives. A strenuous effort 
to maintain this positon and to induce other powers to 
accept this principle has always been one of the chief 
features of the foreign policy of the United States, and 
in a few cases the Department of State has even carried 
the assertion of it to the verge of war. It was partially 
or conditionally acknowledged in the treaty of February 
22, 1868, between the United States and the North 
German Confederation, and fully avowed in the so- 
called Burlingame treaty formed a few months later 
between the United States and China, the fifth article 
of which explicitly declares that both the sovereign 
powers " cordially recognise the inherent and inalien- 
able right of man to change his home and allegiance." 

In utter disregard of the principle involved in these 
treaty stipulations Congress has since then passed two 
acts practically denying the right of expatriation by re- 
fusing to accept its logical consequences — namely, the 
right of the individual thus expatriated to settle, labour, 
and become naturalized in the country to which he 
chooses to emigrate. The first of these acts was that 
of 1875 forbidding foreigners to enter the United States 
under contract to labour, and the second was that of 
1882 excluding Chinese from the privilege of American 
citizenship. In both cases the abrogation of this "in- 
herent and inalienable right of man " and " funda- 
mental principle of the republic " was the result of 
demagogic pandering to the passions and prejudices of 



THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 49 

the lowest classes of the people^ who still worship " the 
idols of the tribe " and show their faith by their works 
in burning negroes at the South and mobbing Mon- 
golians in the far West. It is especially in remote and 
sparsely populated regions of the nominally civilized 
world that primitive barbarism survives and bears sway.* 

The aborigines of British America, who can not re- 
gard human beings otherwise than from a tribal point of 
view, still speak of the English as King George's men; 
but the inhabitants of Canada consider themselves 
Canadians irrespectively of their ancestral origin, and 
the same readiness to sink the claims of lineage when 
they conflict with territorial interests manifests itself 
even in the more recent colonies of Australia and New 
Zealand. Geographical contiguity proves, in such cases, 
stronger than genealogical connections; the old proverb, 
that blood is thicker than water, does not hold true of 
oceans. 

The appeals that have been made in recent times to 
ethnic antipathies and ethnic sjnnpathies for the pur- 
poses of political propagandism or the promotion of per- 
sonal ambition are anachronistic attempts to resuscitate 
the tribal spirit under new forms and on a larger scale 
by a perverse and pseudo-scientific application of the 
results of comparative philology to public affairs. The 
hobby of Napoleon III concerning the unity of the 
Latin nations, and the necessity of their closer con- 
federation under the hegemony of France, was, like 
his Life of Caesar, an act of historical self-justification, 
a desperate endeavour to explain his own raison d'etre, 

* Cf. An Abandoned Position in The Nation, vol. Ivii, No. 1485, 
p. 443. 



50 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

and thus set up a temporary prop to a rickety and root- 
less dynasty. 

Panslavism may continue, for a time, to please the 
imagination and to fire the zeal of a people so peculiarly 
subjected, in many respects, to primitive social condi- 
tions and so powerfully swayed by primitive ideas as are 
the Eussians; but Germany has long since outgrown 
the swaddling-clout of Panteutonism, and no ranting 
of anti-Semitic agitators and men' of that ilk about 
ur-deutsch and rein-deutsch can permanently affect the 
public mind or elicit a favourable response in legis- 
lative enactments. 

There is no cry so foolish or pernicious that it will 
not find a ringing echo in the empty brain-pan of some 
fanatic, no whimsey so silly and absurd that it will not 
be caught up and preached as a new gospel of universal 
redemption by a few pamphleteering demagogues or 
ill-balanced apostles of reform. Impecunious owners 
of poorly furnished and tenantless garrets are only too 
ready to let them to the first vagrant that knocks at 
the door, however seedy his appearance and doubtful his 
repute. Even the anti-Semitic crusade, so far as it has 
succeeded in getting a hearing and making any head- 
way among sensible persons, has done so by appealing 
to the liberal spirit of the age and representing itself 
as a protest against the tribal exclusiveness of Judaism. 

The constitution of the aboriginal tribe as a com- 
pact body of kinsmen, animated by feelings of hostility 
toward all other tribes, necessitated the intermarriage 
of blood-relations. If, on account of scarcity of females, 
or for any other reason, a man desired to wed a woman 
of another tribe, instead of wooing her as a friend, he 
waylaid her as a foe, stunned her with a blow of his 



THE ETHICS OF TEIBAL SOCIETY. 51 

war-club, and carried her oli as booty rather than beauty 
to his camp, where she served him henceforth, not so 
much as his companion and helpmate as his slave and 
beast of burden. 

Even after this tribal exclusiveness and isolation 
had ceased and a certain amount of amicable intertribal 
intercourse had grown up, it was still deemed more 
virtuous or, as we would say, more patriotic for a man 
to marry his own kin than to take his wife or wives 
from an alien people. The tribal religion also lent its 
special sanction to such nuptials. Survivals of this 
sentiment are found in the ancient customs and in the 
sacred Scriptures and traditions of many nations, espe- 
cially in the Orient. 

Thus, in the Avesta, a marriage of next of kin 
(quaetvadatha) is declared to be particularly praise- 
worthy and well-pleasing to Ahuramazada, the Good 
Spirit (Visparad, iii, 18). This " kinship-union " is a 
prominent article of faith in the Mazdayasnian creed 
(Yasna, xiii, 28); and in the Book of Arda Viraf (ii, 
1, 2) Viraf is said to have had seven sisters, who were 
to him as wives (cMgun nesJiman), and this circum- 
stance is adduced as evidence of his extraordinary piety. 
The connubial relations of this model of a religious 
man were both polygamous and incestuous. 

Herodotus states (iii, 88) that Cambyses, the son and 
successor of Cyrus, was wedded to his own sister Atossa; 
and when, in the Hebrew story, Tamar rebukes Amnon 
for his guilty passion and tells him that " no such thing 
ought to be done in Israel," she refers solely to her 
brother's folly and wickedness in seeking a secret and 
illicit connection, and suggests that, if he will only 
speak to the king on the subject, there would be no 



\ 



52 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

obstacle to their union. That such marriages were com- 
mon in the earlier history of the Jews is evident from 
the fact that Abram took to wife his half-sister Sarah, 
and this event is not recorded as an nniisual occurrence. 
Among the Persians this custom seems to have been 
confined, for the most part, to priests and kings, who 
constitute always and everywhere the two most con- 
servative classes of society. Thus it came to be re- 
garded as a mark of distinction or an enviable privi- 
lege, of which wealthy persons of inferior rank some- 
times endeavoured to avail themselves; but there is no 
evidence that it remained, within historical times, a law 
for the entire nation or was generally practised by the 
people at large. The Magians continued to wive their 
sisters in conformity to ancient usage and holy tradition, 
for the same reason that stone knives and hatchets are 
used in sacrificial rites and fire for the altar is kindled 
by laboriously rubbing two sticks together long after 
these clumsy methods have been superseded in secular 
life by steel implements and lucif er matches. 



CHAPTEE II. 

EELIGIOUS BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MOEAL OBLIGA- 
TION. 

The bond of blood superseded by the bond of belief. Theocentric 
attraction superior to ethnocentric attraction. The fiction of 
sacramental kinship in the Catholic Church. Religion as the 
cement of primitive society. Tribal religions nonproselytiz- 
ing. Religious antagonisms in old Aryan society. Zarathus- 
tra's mission and creed. The worship of Ahuramazda and 
the holiness of agriculture. Inculcation of thrift and frui- 
tion by the Ahuryan religion. Condemnation of asceticism 
and celibacy. The begetting of sons as a means of salvation. 
The legend of Yima and the transition from pastoral to agri- 
cultural life. Antagonism between the good spirit and the 
evil mind. Modern examples of this enmity : Dards, Cos- 
sacks, Bedouins, and Mormons. Sinfulness of lending money 
on interest. Effects of this primitive notion in mediaeval and 
modern times. Gradual growth of more enlightened views. 
Tribal spirit of Jewish burglars in Prussia. Uses of the 
Schabbesgoi. Brutality of the higher toward the lower races. 
Relapses into savagery through emigration. Moral restraint 
resulting from rapid international intercourse. 

Following the primitive period of tribal ethics 
comes a second stage of social and moral development, 
which Mr. Maine calls the supersession of the bond of 
blood by the bond of belief. Ethnocentric attraction 
gives way to what might be called theocentric attrac- 
tion, and a broader and more spiritual sort of associa- 

53 



54 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

tion is formed^ having for its basis, not consanguinity, 
but conformity in religious conceptions. The god takes 
the place of the human progenitor of the tribe, or rather 
grows out of his deification in the evolution of ancestor 
worship, which is probably the oldest of cults. 

Nevertheless, in this case, the fundamental princi- 
ple of primitive society, which makes friendship coex- 
tensive with kinship, is not abrogated, but only en- 
larged in its application, causing those who worship the 
same deities or propitiate the same demons to enter 
into fraternal relations and call themselves brethren. 

The canonical prohibition of marriage between per- 
sons connected merely by the artificial ties of a reli- 
gious rite, such as sponsors and baptized infants, god- 
fathers, godmothers, and godchildren, proves how in- 
timately the idea of ritual relationship was associated 
with that of real relationship in the minds of those 
who established and perpetuated this institution. This 
fiction of sacramental kinship was at one time carried 
so far in the papal Church as to forbid the sponsor 
to be joined in wedlock even to the parent of a god- 
child. Cohabitation between a patrinus and a matrina 
was regarded as incest until the Council of Trent re- 
moved the ecclesiastical bar to such unions. The fact 
that they had assumed the position of spiritual parents 
to one infant prevented them from becoming the real 
and lawful parents of another infant. The importance 
attached to the name-day, which in most Catholic coun- 
tries quite supplants the birthday as an anniversary, 
is also additional evidence of the vigour and vitality 
of primitive conceptions as embodied in ecclesiastical 
institutions. 

Religion is, in fact, as Schelling observes, the strong- 



I 



BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 55 

est cement of primitive society, and the influence which 
contributes more than any other to the evolution and 
organization of the nation and state out of the tribe. 
Plutarch says: " Methinks a man should sooner find 
a city built in the air, without any ground to rest upon, 
than that any commonwealth altogether void of re- 
ligion should be either first established or afterward 
preserved and maintained in that estate. For it is this 
that contains and holds together all human society and 
is its main prop and stay." Hegel expressed the same 
idea when he asserted that " the idea of God forms the 
general foundation of a people." Herbart calls atten- 
tion to the pedagogical and disciplinary value of re- 
ligion in the early stages of man's development, since 
it teaches him to subordinate present desires to future 
welfare, to look to the remote results of his conduct, 
and to sacrifice momentary pleasures here to perma- 
nent advantages hereafter. 

But the ordinary experiences of life, especially in 
a cold climate, are quite as efi'ective in inculcating thrift 
and enforcing the first elementary principle of domestic 
and political economy — that a man can not eat his pud- 
ding and keep it too. Stress of hunger emphasizes the 
necessity of laying up stores of provisions against time 
of need, and teaches foresight and forehand more di- 
rectly and more forcibly than any hypothetical relation 
of man to the gods could do. 

Originally the tie of religion must have been iden- 
tical with the tie of relationship, and the brotherhood 
of belief coextensive with the brotherhood of blood, 
since all members of the same family or tribe would 
naturally adore the same domestic or tribal deities. 
Without this acceptance of the tribal theology and 



56 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

traditions by every individual of the tribe, the public 
peace would be constantly disturbed and the very ex- 
istence of primitive society imperilled. 

With the lapse of time and the increase of intelli- 
gence, however, vague wonder and ignorant worship 
would give place in more thoughtful minds to obstinate 
questionings, blank misgivings, and stubborn scepti- 
cisms, leading logically and inevitably to open schisms, 
and resulting in the formation of new communities of 
faith, crystallizing around the nucleus of a vital re- 
ligious conviction. It was then proved, what all later 
history confirms, that spiritual affinities have a stronger 
cohesive attraction than natural affinities, and that, in 
every case of tension, the latter are sure to yield and 
be rent asunder. 

Even the founder of Christianity, who professed to 
proclaim a gospel of peace on earth and good will to 
man, foresaw and did not hesitate to declare that this 
sundering of the closest consanguineous connections and 
division of families into hostile factions would be the 
necessary consequence of his teachings. He spoke of 
his doctrines as a sword destined to sever the nearest 
ties of natural affection and affinity, setting the son 
at variance against the father, and the daughter against 
the mother, and converting the members of a man's 
household into his bitterest foes. 

The centre of cohesive attraction, which binds the 
new community so firmly together and so relentlessly 
ruptures all older associations, is the creed, or what is 
known in Christian theology as the symbol, the same 
term that, as we have already seen, was used by the 
Greeks to denote the token or pledge of hereditary hos- 
pitality and friendship between families, which fur- 



BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 57 

nished a basis for the formation of treaties of amity 
and commerce between tribes. 

Strictly tribal religions never proselytize. Instead 
of seeking to share with alien tribes the favour and 
protection of their gods, they wish to monopolize what- 
ever power and patronage may be derived from this 
source as a means of rendering themselves superior to 
their enemies. This w^as the case with the ancient 
Hebrews, who never thought of sending missionaries 
into other lands to make converts to Jehovah, but would 
have condemned such a procedure as treasonable. It 
is true that Jesus, in his denunciation of the Phari- 
sees, declared that they " compass sea and land to make 
one proselyte " ; but this reproof referred to their zeal 
as a political party in winning adherents among their 
own countrymen, in order to supplant the more liberal- 
minded and less rigidly ritualistic Sadducees in the 
Sanhedrin. 

Jesus himself evidently never intended to break 
away from Judaism and to become the founder of a new 
religion. According to his own statement, he was " not 
sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 
His mission was not to destroy, but to fulfil; not to 
abrogate, but to accomplish the law. He sought to 
give a spiritual interpretation to ancient precepts and 
injunctions; to revivify and rehabilitate the moral sen- 
timent, hitherto dwarfed and deformed under the heavy 
burden of a perfunctory ceremonialism; and to enforce 
the commandments of God free from all incrustations 
of the traditions of men. 

Curiously, and yet naturally enough, it was out of 
the very strictest sect of the Pharisees, so severely re- 
buked on account of their proselytic spirit, that the 



58 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

great proselyte Paul came — the man whose breadth of 
view and energy . of purpose changed a local reforma- 
tory movement;, which seemed to have been practically 
suppressed by the crucifixion^ into a world-wide religion, 
by emancipating it from the fetters of Mosaic formal- 
ism, taking it out of the narrow ghetto of tribalism, 
and imparting to it a universal character. In this 
bold effort to turn apparent disaster into permanent 
victory, by breaking through the barriers of Judaism 
and preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, he met with 
the most determined opposition from the near kin and 
personal friends of Jesus, as well as from the principal 
disciples in Jerusalem. 

To this process of development — by which Chris- 
tianity, whose " field is the world," rose out of Judaism, 
the special cult of a privileged race — we have a parallel 
in the historical evolution of Buddhism, as a religion 
of pure humanity aspiring to universality, out of the 
narrow exclusiveness of Brahmanism with its rigor- 
ous politico-ethnological system of hereditary caste. 

If, however, we go back to an earlier period, we 
meet with a most striking example of the workings 
of these conflicting forces in the disintegration and re- 
construction of old Aryan society, thirty centuries ago, 
in the highlands of Bactria. The nature of this epoch- 
making movement, which took place as the result of 
Zarathustra's teachings and under his leadership, and 
the deep and enduring enmity it excited between people 
of the same blood, are perceptible in the solemn pledge 
or confession of faith by which the proselyte was re- 
ceived into the fellowship of the Iranian community. 

This remarkable document, written in the ancient 
Gatha dialect, which is surmised to have been the ver- 



BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 59 

nacular of Zaratliustra's native province and the mother- 
tongue of the prophet, begins with an abjuration of the 
ancestral deva worship and a vow of devotion to the 
glorious and munificent Ahuramazda, and then pro- 
ceeds to a renunciation of all evil works, and especially 
of those deeds of violence peculiar to nomadic free- 
booters: " I choose the beneficent Armaiti (earth), the 
good. May she be mine! I detest all fraud and injury 
done to the spirit of the earth, and all damage and de- 
struction to the homes of the Mazdayasnians. I permit 
the good spirits, which dwell on the earth in the form 
of good animals (such as sheep and kine), to roam un- 
disturbed according to their pleasure. I praise, besides, 
all offerings and prayers to promote the growth of life. 
I will never do harm or hurt to the habitations of the 
Mazdayasnians, neither with my body nor with my soul. 
I forsake the devas, the wicked and malicious workers 
of iniquity, the most baneful, most malignant, and 
basest of beings. I forsake the devas and their like, 
the wizards and their allies, and all creatures whatso- 
ever of such kind. I forsake them in thought, in word, 
and in deed. I forsake them hereby publicly, and de- 
clare that all their deceits and lies shall be put away." 
After further asseverations in the same strain, and after 
renouncing anew the devas, and entering into covenant 
with the waters, the woods, and the living spirit of Na- 
ture, and accepting the creed of the fire-priests, the dif- 
fusers of light and of truth, the convert concludes by 
avowing himself to be a disciple of Zarathustra, an 
adherent of the pure Ahuryan religion, and a member 
of the righteous brotherhood. Henceforth he is a 
sworn foe of the evil-doing, ancestral deities, and a 
zealous co-worker with Ahuramazda in promoting good 



60 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

thoughts, good words, and good deeds — liumata, huhhta, 
Jiuvarshta. 

With this proclamation of a purer religion the pro- 
mulgation of a higher law of social life and a superior 
form of civilization was genetically connected — namely, 
the sacred duty of fostering and gladdening the spirit 
of the earth (personified as the goddess or angel Ar- 
maiti), by tilling the soil and making it fruitful. Hus- 
bandry is holiness to the Lord. In the third fargard 
of the Vendidad this conception of agriculture as a 
sacred calling is particularly enlarged upon and en- 
forced. The earth is there compared to a beautiful 
woman, who fails to fulfil her noblest functions so long 
as she remains virgin and barren. " He who cultivates 
barley cultivates righteousness, and extends the Maz- 
dayasnian religion as much as though he resisted a 
thousand demons, made a thousand offerings, or recited 
a thousand prayers." Indeed, the best way to fight 
evil spirits is to redeem the waste places which they are 
supposed to inhabit. The spade and the plough are more 
effective than magic spells and incantations as means 
of exorcism. An old Avestan verse, which is quoted 
in inculcation and encouragement of tillage, and may 
have been sung by Iranian husbandmen as they sowed 
the seed and reaped the harvest, celebrates the influ- 
ence and efficacy of their toil in discomfiting and driv- 
ing out devils: 

The demons hiss when the barley's green, 
The demons moan at the thrashing's sound ; 
The demons roar as the grist is ground, 

The demons flee when the flour is seen. 

[These lines have also in the original a sort of rude 
rhyme or assonance peculiar to ancient poetry: 



BELIEF AS A BASIS OP MORAL OBLIGATION. 61 

Yadh yavo day at aat da^va gis'en, 
Yadh s'udhus dayat aat da^va tus'en ; 
Yadh pistro dayat aat da^va uruthen, 
Yadh gundd dayat aat daeva perethen. 

Vendidad, iii, 105-108, Spiegel's ed]. 

If the Mazdayasnian religion, as revealed in the 
Avesta., illustrated in a remarkable manner the Bene- 
dictine maxim laborare est orare, it had no sympathy 
with the melancholy salutation memento mori, with 
which the Trappist greets the members of his silent 
brotherhood. As taught by the Iranian prophet and 
still practised by the modern Parsis, it is pre-eminently 
a religion of thrift, and enjoins as a sacred duty the 
honest accumulation and hearty enjoyment of wealth. 
Poverty and asceticism have no place in its list of vir- 
tues. Voluntary abstinence from the pleasurable 
things of the good creation is an act of base ingrati- 
tude and treason toward the bountiful giver of them. 
He who despises them is a contemner of Ahuramazda 
and an ally of the devas, and contributes thus far to the 
triumph of evil in the world. The righteous man 
should not dwell upon the idea of death, but banish it 
from his thoughts and earnestly strive after the realiza- 
tion of a fuller and richer life. It is the height of folly 
to suppose that mortifications of the flesh can further 
spftitual growth. Whatever fosters the health of the 
body favours the health of the soul; but the emaciation 
of the body impoverishes the soul. The notion which 
underlies what is known as " muscular Christianity " 
pervades the entire Avesta and finds a naive and pithy 
expression in the following text of the Vendidad, which 
the tiller of the soil is directed always to bear in mind 
and frequently to repeat: 



62 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS, 

Who eateth not for naught hath strength, 
No strength for robust purity, 
No strength for robust husbandry, 
No strength for getting robust sons, 

[Here, too, we have a bit of old poetry passed into 
a proverb. In the original the only trace of rhyme 
(and this we have preserved in the rendering) is 
the assonance of the second and third lines: 

Na^chis aquarentam tva, 
Noit ughram ashyam, 
Noit ughram vas'tryam, 
Noit ughram putroist^m. 

Vendidad, iii, 112-115. 

The editorial bracketing of the last line by Prof. 
Spiegel, as a possible interpolation, indicates an excess 
of critical suspicion, since this line not only fills ont 
the verse, bnt also finishes up the thought, rounding 
and completing the expression of the sentiment with 
a climax.] 

In another passage Ahuramazda declares: "Verily 
I say unto thee, Spitama Zarathustra! the man who 
has a wife is far above him who begets no sons; he 
who has a household is far above him who has none; 
he who has children is far above the childless man; he 
who has riches is far above him who is destitute of them. 
And of two men, the one who fills himself with meat 
is filled with the good spirit (voliu mano) much more 
than he who goes hungry; the latter is all but dead; 
the former is above him by the worth of a kid (as'pe- 
rena), by the worth of a sheep, by the worth of an ox, 
by the worth of a man. [As'pei^eiia, usually rendered 
weight or coin, is derived from a -f- s'par, and means 
not walking or not grown, a young animal, a kid or a 



BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 63 

lamb. Cf. Sanskrit sphar or sphur, to expand or to 
swell.] Such a person can resist the onsets of As'to- 
vidhotus (the demon of death); can resist the self- 
moving arrow; can resist the winter fiend, even though 
thinly clad; can resist and smite the wicked tyrant; 
can resist the assaults of the ungodly Ashemaogho (the 
destroyer of purity) who does not eat.^^ (A'end. iv, 
130-lil.) 

According to Herodotus (i, 136), the Persian king 
gave prizes to those of his subjects who had the great- 
est number of children. Vigorous procreation was one 
of the most effectual means of grace. It is stated in the 
Sad-dar that " to him who has no child, the Chinvad 
bridge (leading to paradise) shall be barred. The first 
question the angels who guard this narrow passage 
will ask him is whether he has left in this world a like- 
ness of himself; if he answers in the negative, they 
will leave him standing at the head of the bridge, full 
of sorrow and despair." In the same work that con- 
tains this piece of eschatology it is also written: 
" There are those who strive to pass a day without 
eating and who abstain from meat; we, too, have our 
strivings and abstainings, namely, from evil thoughts, 
and evil words, and evil deeds. Other religions pre- 
scribe fasting from bread; ours enjoins fasting from 
sin." 

The Brahmans maintained that the man who died 
without a son went to perdition, because there was no 
one to pay him the traditional family worship; hence 
the necessity of adopting a son in case he had none 
of his own. The Levitical law, as we have already seen, 
compelled a man to take the wife of a deceased brother, 
who died childless, and raise up seed to him. In the 



64 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

Persian Eivayats^ or collections of traditions, similar 
matrimonial prescriptions are given. Thus, if a man 
over fifteen years of age dies childless and unmarried, 
his relations are to provide a maiden with a dowry and 
marry her to another man. Half of the children result- 
ing from this union are to belong to the dead man and 
half of them to his proxy, the actual husband, and she 
herself is to be the dead man's wife in the next world. 
This kind of wife is called satar, "adopted." Again, 
if a widow, who has no children by her first husband, 
marries again, half of her children by the second hus- 
band are regarded as belonging to the first husband, 
and she also belongs to him in the future life; such 
a wife is called cliakar, " serving." The first child of 
an only daughter belongs to her parents, if they have 
no sons, and they give her one third of their property 
in compensation. This kind of wife is called yukan, 
or " only child " wife. (Dr. E. W. West, Pahlavi Texts, 
in The Sacred Books of the East, vol. v, p. 143.) All 
these laws and customs show the vital importance at- 
tached to the possession of male offspring and to the 
preservation of an unbroken succession in the line of 
descent. 

There are strong indications that the transition from 
pastoral to agricultural life in old Aryan society pre- 
ceded the transformation of religious conceptions, and 
that the latter grew up gradually as a means of con- 
centrating and more completely consolidating the 
former. In the second far gar d of the Yendidad a 
curious account is given of Yima, who lived before 
Zarathustra and is spoken of as a king rich in herds 
and a man of renown in Airyana-Vaejo, the Eden of 
the race. It was this exalted personage whom Ahura- 



BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 65 

mazda is said to have first chosen to be the promul- 
gator of the true faith. But Yinia, the son of Vivangh- 
aht (a name derived perhaps from vangh, to dwell or 
abide, and meaning settler or dweller in fixed habita- 
tions), excused himself, on the plea of unfitness for 
the prophetic office. He may have been, like Moses, 
a man of deeds rather than of words, " slow of speech 
and of a slow tongue." Then said Ahuramazda, " If 
thou wilt not be the bearer and herald of the faith, then 
shalt thou inclose my habitations and become the pro- 
tector and preserver of my settlements." Thereupon 
he gave him a golden ploughshare and a goad decorated 
with gold as insignia of his royal office. [The word 
s'ufra I prefer to translate " ploughshare " rather than 
" sword " with Haug, or " lance " with Spiegel. It 
means literally a cutting instrument. In the Avesta, 
ploughing is called " cutting the cow " ; and in the 
Vedic hymns the phrase " cut the cow " is equivalent 
to " make fertile the earth." " The soul of the cow " 
{geush urvd) means the spirit of the earth or the ani- 
mating energy of Nature. In the Pahlavi translation 
of this passage s'ufra is rendered by sulak-homand, 
" having holes " or " sieve," and might therefore cor- 
respond to the Sanskrit s'urpa, " winnowing tray." 
The Pahlavi for ploughshare is sulak, and the close 
resemblance of this word to sulak, "hole," modern 
Persian sulakh and surdlch, may have led to a confusion 
and interchange of terms, both of which involve the 
idea of piercing or perforating.] 

And Yima bore sway three hundred years; and 
the land " was filled with cattle, oxen, men, dogs, birds, 
and red blazing fires," until there was no more room 
for them therein. Then Yima went southward (lit- 



QQ EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

erally, " toward the stars on the noonday path of the 
sun "), and^ invoking the bounteous Armaiti, touched 
the earth with the golden ploughshare and pierced 
it with the goad; and^ in obedience to his behest, the 
earth expanded and became one third larger than be- 
fore. This process he repeated, according to the Zand, 
after six hundred years and again after nine hundred 
years, with a constantly increasing extension of the 
earth, which finally became about thrice its original 
size, and thus afforded ample space for men and kine. 

It is not difficult to discover the meaning of this 
legend. It is the mythical statement of the effect of 
agriculture in practically enlarging the surface of the 
earth by increasing its capacity for supporting animal 
life, and thus rendering it possible for a greater num- 
ber of persons to subsist on the products of the same 
area of soil. A tract of country which would furnish 
precarious food for a single hunter, or pasturage for a 
score of herdsmen, would, even under rude tillage, 
easily supply sustenance for a hundred husbandmen. 
Indeed, it has been estimated that one acre of arable 
land will bring forth as much food and consequently 
sustain as many inhabitants as two thousand acres of 
hunting ground. 

In the fulness of time Yima was succeeded by the 
man who, like Aaron, could " speak well," and in the 
first Gatha we find an address which Zarathustra de- 
livered to his countrymen congregated around the 
sacred fire. It begins as follows: "I will now reveal 
to you who are here assembled the wise words of Mazda, 
the worship of Ahura, the hymns in praise of the good 
spirit, the sublime truth, which I see rising out of the 
sacred flames." He then appeals to them as the " off- 



BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 67 

spring of renowned ancestors " to rouse their minds 
and give heed to his divine message: "To-day, men 
and women, you should choose your creed." 

After this hrief exordium, he plunges at once into 
his subject and offers his solution of the old and ever- 
puzzling problem of good and evil, which he personi- 
fies as twin spirits, counter-workers in the creation of 
the world, each exercising its peculiar activity and con- 
tributing its characteristic element, and promoting re- 
spectively the happiness and the misery of mankind. 
It may also be safely asserted that, from a theistic point 
of view, no more logical and satisfactory solution of 
the difficulty has ever been presented. He earnestly 
exhorts his hearers to follow after the good and to 
eschew the evil. " Choose between these two spirits, 
for ye can not serve both." " Be pure and not vile." 
" Let us be such as help the life of the future." " Obey, 
therefore, the commandments which Mazda has pro- 
claimed and enjoined upon mankind; for they are a 
snare and perdition to liars, bu.t prosperity to the be- 
liever in the truth and the source of all bliss." 

The whole aim of this discourse, of which these 
extracts suffice to indicate the drift, is to persuade his 
hearers to renounce or to confirm them in their re- 
nunciation of the old Aryan polytheism and worship 
of the devas, as we find it in the Vedas, and to adopt 
monotheism or the adoration of the one great and good 
but by no means omnipotent being, Ahuramazda. As 
a philosophical system, his doctrine was dualistic and 
recognised the existence of two original and independ- 
ent principles in the universe; as a cult, it was mono- 
theolatrous and worshipped only one of these powers. 

It may be added that long before the close of the 



68 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

Vedic period the Indo-Aryans had also begun to devote 
themselves to husbandry, although their chief wealth 
still consisted in herds. The burden of their hymns 
and prayers to the gods is for much cattle and a large 
family of vigorous sons. The foes which they now had 
mostly to contend with were the Dasyus or aborigines 
of India. The occasional mention of Aryan enemies 
may be partly reminiscences or records of an earlier 
time and partly references to intertribal warfares, of 
which there was evidently no lack. It must be borne 
in mind that all the Vedic hymns appear to have been 
composed in northern India, and principally in the 
region now kown as the Panjab. In none of these 
poetical productions do we find any distinct remem- 
brance of a trans-Himalayan origin or any definite 
allusion to a former residence outside of India. This 
circumstance proves that at the time of the supposed 
migration from the North the ancestors of the Indo- 
Aryans must have been rude barbarians, destitute not 
only of written records, but also of the ability to pre- 
serve and transmit from generation to generation tra- 
ditions of great events in their own tribal or national 
history. The savage has a short memory for whatever 
lies beyond the sphere of his individual experience. 

One of Zarathustra's chief injunctions was to " listen 
to the soul of the earth," and to " succour and foster 
the life of Nature." This is to be done by cultivating 
and fertilizing the soil; since the increase of its pro- 
ductivity augments the sum of vitality in the world 
and contributes to the ascendency of the vohumand or 
good mind, synonymous with vis vitalis or living force, 
and aids in securing the supremacy of Ahuramazda. 
Instead of bowing down in servile fear before the phe- 



BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 69 

nomena of Nature, the Mazdayasnians are directed to 
revere and cherish her kindly and beneficent spirit, 
so that " the wilderness and the solitary place shall 
be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blos- 
som as the rose." 

Angro-Mainyush and his satellites, the devas, on 
the other hand, are constantly striving to resist and 
to thwart this purpose^ and to keep the earth in her 
native state of virginal wildness and ruggedness by 
investing her with the dread sanctities and supersti- 
tions of a crude polytheistic physiolatry, by assaulting 
and ravaging the cultivated settlements of the Ahuryan 
agriculturists, and by fomenting and fostering the spirit 
of primeval savagery, personified as Akemmano, or the 
evil mind. In the sacred books and traditions of both 
factions, and more especially in those of the reforma- 
tory party, are frequent traces of this social rupture 
and religious schism, and of the deadly hostility natu- 
rally existing between nomadic hordes, that still ad- 
here to a life of pasturage and pillage, and men of more 
advanced ideas, who dwell in fixed habitations (gaethas) 
and devote themselves to husbandry. 

I am well aware that M. James Darmesteter and 
other representatives of what might be called the 
meteorological school of Avestan scholars deny the 
historical reality of a religious schism of the kind here 
described, and would reduce Zarathustra and all the in- 
cidents of his life to a series of solar myths. It is, how- 
ever, only on the theory of a religious schism that the 
fact that the deities of Brahmanism are the devils of 
Zoroastrianism, and vice versa, can be adequately ex- 
plained. To assert that this antagonism is the result of 
an " accidental selection " of gods is no explanation at 



70 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

all. The religious history of mankind is not a record of 
casualties or mere chapter of accidents. 

Besides, we have a modern example of a similar 
enmity growing out of the transition from nomadic to 
sedentary life in the mythology of the Dards, who are, 
perhaps, one of the oldest races and most primitive 
peoples of the East, and who believe in the existence 
of demons called yatsh (bad), which, like the Homeric 
Cyclops (the barbarous aborigines of the Sicilian coast), 
are of gigantic stature, and have only one eye, set in 
the middle of their forehead. These demons haunt 
the mountains and the wilderness, and are exceed- 
ingly hostile to agriculturists, whom they vex and harm 
in every possible manner, stealing and destroying the 
crops, and even carrying off the husbandmen to their 
gloomy caverns. In this scrap of mythology we have 
the survival of the old strife between barbarism and 
civilization, which began with man's first efforts to 
improve his condition. 

The barbarian is, in fact, the most uncompromising 
incarnation and typical representative of conservatism; 
and it is the survival of the barbarian temper of mind 
that constantly hampers progress and hinders reform 
in modern times. His daily life is the dullest routine 
and would be unbearable, were it not the outcome and 
expression of the general rigidity and sterility of his 
intellect. He treads religiously in the footsteps of his 
forefathers, generation after generation, the whole 
mass moving on bodily and mentally in single file, as is 
the custom with savages. He is the stubborn foe of 
all innovations, and punishes as treason against the 
tribe every deviation from the beaten trail. Under 
such circumstances no social transformation can be ef- 



BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 71 

fected without fierce battle and bloodslied. In tlie 
primitive history of mankind, as in the early physical 
history of the globe, great changes are uniformly the 
result of great convulsions. 

It is not merely the love of booty that leads nomadic 
tribes to attack and lay waste the permanent settlements 
of husbandmen, but the instinct of self-preservation re- 
sisting the encroachments of a new form of social or- 
ganization which imperils the old. For this reason 
hunters are hostile to herdsmen, and herdsmen to tillers 
of the soil; since pasturage diminishes the extent and 
value of hunting grounds, and agriculture diminishes 
the area of pasturage. 

Mr. D. Mackenzie Wallace gives a striking illustra- 
tion of this antagonism in the history of the Cossacks 
of the Don, who, so long as they lived by sheep-farming 
and marauding, prohibited agriculture under pain of 
death. This severe interdict of a peaceful pursuit origi- 
nated, not as some have supposed in the desire to foster 
the warlike spirit of the people, but rather in a percep- 
tion of the fact that " the man who ploughed up a bit 
of land infringed thereby on his neighbour's right of 
pasturage." By this act he became in a certain sense 
guilty of treason against pastoral society, the very foun- 
dations of which, the green sod, he broke up and de- 
stroyed with his ploughshare. He not only restricted 
and reduced the actual area of grazing, but also struck 
a blow at the life of a cattle-rearing community. The 
practical workings of this crude and clannish concep- 
tion of patriotism are recorded, as Mr. Wallace observes, 
on the pages of Byzantine annalists and old Eussian 
chroniclers, who describe the periodical havoc of farm- 
steads committed by the nomadic tribes which from 



72 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

time immemorial had roamed the vast plains north of 
the Black and Caspian Seas, razing the houses, ravaging 
the fields, and leaving the bodies of the husbandmen 
as food for vultures. 

The roving Bedouins, dwellers in the desert, as their 
name implies, despise the cultivators of the soil and 
call them contemptuously fellaliin (ploughers, boors); 
and their kinsmen the Anasis (andsi, men) hover on 
the borders and levy blackmail on the villages of 
Syria. It is also significant for the persistency of this 
primitive point of view that the Arabic word for agri- 
culture (faldliat), should also mean " fraudulent traffic," 
as though the permanent possession of a piece of land 
and the exclusive use or sale of the products of the 
soil were in themselves swindling operations. 

These facts of to-day suffice to show the kind of 
opposition which Zarathustra had to face in his efforts 
to establish the Iranians in fixed settlements and to 
accustom them to the acquisition and proper utiliza- 
tion of landed property. In order to accomplish this 
purpose it was necessary to teach the holiness of hus- 
bandry and to invest seedtime and harvest with the 
sanctity of religion. 

The Mormons, after their migration to Salt Lake, 
where the very existence of the community depended 
upon converting the desert into a garden, inaugurated 
the same policy, declaring through the mouth of their 
prophet that the human race could be redeemed and 
paradise regained only by means of tillage and making 
agriculture a sacred vocation and the pursuit of it a 
prominent part of their creed. 

The priests of the old deva cult, the progenitors 
of the Brahmans, on the other hand, denounced Zara- 



BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION, ^3 

thustra as a schismatic and a renegade, a contemner 
of the gods and blasphemer, a scorner of ancient cus- 
tom and subverter of social order. They therefore 
opposed the innovation and fought for the faith of their 
fathers with such clumsy weapons as they were most 
skilled in wielding, looting the homesteads, uprooting 
and trampling down the green blades of wheat and 
barley, which stood as representatives of the growing 
heresy, and, with a logic peculiar to theological zealots 
and ecclesiastical inquisitors in all ages, refuting the 
new doctrine and resisting the reformatory movement 
by greater energy and assiduity in the ancient and 
honourable calling of cattle-lifting. 

As we have already seen, the duty of a man to 
shield and sustain a. -tribesman against an alien under 
all circumstances is imperative. Acts of extortion, 
treachery, or violence, which would be punished by 
death if committed against a member of the same tribe, 
are regarded as indifferent or laudable when the in- 
jured person is a foreigner. The same tendency to 
approve or to extenuate the bad conduct of " brethren ^' 
enters also more or less into the ethics of all communi- 
ties or collective bodies which are held together by the 
bond of belief. 

All people in a low state of civilization have a strong 
prejudice against lending money on interest, and look 
upon all such transactions as sinful. The same notion 
still prevails among the lower classes of civilized nations, 
whose superstitions are in most cases mere survivals of 
savage life. So strong is this feeling, inculcated and 
consecrated by religious teachings and traditions, that 
a certain stigma attaches to the money broker even in 
the minds of otherwise intelligent persons. "Many 



74 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

lend money on interest," says Cato, " but it is not 
honourable to do so. Our ancestors enacted in their 
laws that the thief should restore twofold, but the 
taker of interest fourfold, from which we see how much 
worse a usurer was thought to be than a thief." 

In general, however, usury, like every other sup- 
posed crime, was regarded as wrong only when applied 
to kindred or tribesmen. The Jews were forbidden 
to " take a breed of barren metal " from those of their 
own faith, but might exact it from Gentiles. Curious- 
ly enough, in the middle ages this privilege was granted 
to the Jews, not in the spirit of favouritism, but as a 
necessity to sovereigns and to society and from feelings 
of utter scorn and contempt. As neither government 
nor trade could do without this vilely esteemed voca- 
tion, the Jews were selected to carry it on, because 
they were considered a vile people incapable alike of 
improvement or of deeper degradation. The state and 
the Church, which felt an interest in the spiritual wel- 
fare and safety of the Christian, were wholly indif- 
ferent to the future fate of the Jew. That sweet saint, 
Bernard of Clairvaux, surnamed the honey-flowing 
teacher {doctor mellifluus), urged the rulers of his day 
to tolerate the Jews, not because he hated persecution, 
but in order that Christians might not be constrained 
to imperil the salvation of their souls by the sin of 
usury. The Israelitic pariahs of mediaeval society 
rendered the same service to Christian virtue that pro- 
fessional prostitutes do to female chastity. We have 
a striking illustration of this point of view in a decree 
issued in 1219, by the German emperor Frederick III, 
permitting the Jews to dwell in Nuremberg and to take 
a percentage for the use of money. Inasmuch as this 



BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 75 

business, he said in Justification of his edict, is essential 
to the growth of commerce and the prosperity of the 
city, it will be a lesser evil and wrong for Jews to prac- 
tise usury than for Christians, since the former are a 
stubborn and stiffnecked race, and, if they persist in 
their perversity, as they probably will do, are doomed 
to be damned anyhow.* We have a relic of this primi- 
tive prejudice in the efforts of modern governments 
to establish a fixed rate of interest for the use of money 
and to punish as usury any higher compensation for it. 
All such attempts have uniformly proved to be not only 
futile, but also productive of evil to both borrower and 
lender, and especially to the former; and as the result 
of more enlightened views of financial and economical 
science they are gradually sharing the fate of sumptu- 
ary laws and similar regulations and disappearing from 
the statute books. The value of money, like that of any 
other marketable commodity, can not be positively pre- 
scribed by legislative enactments, but must be deter- 
mined by the natural law of supply and demand. 

The Hebrew, on the other hand, heartily recipro- 
cated the Christianas contumely, and could hardly con- 
ceal, under the prudent disguise of mock humility, his 
disdain for the upstart Nazarene. He not only deemed 
it a religious duty to cheat him in money matters, but 
thought it perfectly right to use him as an agent in 
base or criminal transactions which a good Israelite 
could not conscientiously perform. 

This mental and moral attitude, which even the 

* We have referred to this characteristic decree in a work en- 
titled Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture (London : 
William Heinemann ; New York : Henry Holt & Co., 1896, p. 293) 
for the purpose of illustrating another subject. 



76 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

modern Hebrew still maintains^ is strikingly exempli- 
fied by the following incident: Between 1820 and 1830 
a band of burglars, numbering over one hundred per- 
sons and consisting entirely of Jews, made property 
so unsafe as to create a panic among the inhabitants 
of the Prussian provinces of Posen and Brandenburg. 
The chief of the band was a certain Loewenthal in Ber- 
lin, and all the members of it were extremely devout 
attendants of the synagogue and strict observers of 
every jot and tittle of the Levitical law. They never 
broke into the houses of Jews and never stole on the 
Sabbath, since such an act would be a desecration of 
the sacred " day of rest " ; but, rather than let an ex- 
ceptionably favourable opportunity escape, they some- 
times employed a so-called schabbesgol [schoMesgo'i (Sab- 
bath-Gentile) is a Jew-German term for the Christian 
attendant or servant who does for an Israelite on the 
Sabbath the things which his religion forbids him to 
do for himself] to commit the crime for them, and, 
if necessary, did not hesitate to have some one of their 
own number accompany him on his burglarious ex- 
pedition a couple of thousand yards or so, the limits 
of a Sabbath day's journey. In case one of the band 
was suspected of any particular offence and arrested, 
the surest and speediest way of clearing himself was 
to prove an alibi by the testimony of two witnesses, 
as the law required. But the pious Hebrew regards 
perjury with peculiar abhorrence, and fears above all 
things to take a false oath. Shylock was eager to cut 
the heart out of his hated enemy, but he would not 
lay perjury upon his soul — no, not for Venice! The 
burglars kept, therefore, in their pay two Christians, 
who were as ready to forswear themselves as any Tam- 



BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 77 

many Hall politician at the polls, and who made the 
requisite false oaths at fixed rates. 

These examples serve to show the natural tendency 
of mankind to look upon compatriots and coreligion- 
ists from a different moral standpoint from that with 
which they regard persons who are not connected 
with them by such ties, and to whom they not only at- 
tribute a lower standard of right and wrong, but also 
act upon it as a rule of conduct in deahng with 
them. 

Great dissimilarity in physical characteristics inten- 
sifies the ethical estrangement caused by differences of 
blood and of belief. The more any tribes of men devi- 
ate from ourselves in form and feature, the less we 
are inclined to think of them as endowed with the same 
powers and passions, the same kind of s}TQpathy and 
sensibility as ourselves, or as entitled to the same rights 
that we possess. A people with black skin, woolly hair, 
flat noses, and countenances of a strongly prognathous 
character do not enlist our kindly feehngs and awaken 
our affections in the same manner and degree as repre- 
sentatives of a fair-complexioned and finely featured 
type would do. The schemes of European governments 
and of private individuals and corporations for the ex- 
ploration, partition, and colonization of Africa are 
based upon the assumption that the Africans themselves 
have no claim to the continent which they inhabit. 
The only African colony that has ever been founded on 
principles of common justice and with a full recognition 
of the rights of the natives is the Eepublic of Liberia, 
estabhshed more than sixty years ago under the aus- 
pices of the United States, and this was done solely 
for the sake of getting rid of an undesirable popula- 



78 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

tion of free negroes at home. All the other enter- 
prises of this sort are morally and legally no better than 
buccaneering expeditions. 

The ethical maxims which we are wont to accept as 
axiomatic in our mutual relations as civilized individ- 
uals and nations are too easily set aside as inconvenient 
and inapplicable to our dealings with the so-called 
lower races. The fatal facility with which under such 
circumstances enlightened Europeans of the nineteenth 
century may revert to primitive savagery as soon as 
the outward restraints of civilization are removed is 
seen in the early settlers of Australia^ who did not 
scruple to shoot the defenceless and harmless aborigines 
as they would any game, and feed the carcasses to their 
hounds. The inoffensive and rather feeble-bodied 
Negritos were treated as beasts of venery, which could 
be hunted without danger and furnished plentiful sup- 
plies of dog's meat, costing the sportsman nothing, not 
even a pang of conscience, only the price of a cartridge. 
(Cf. Schaafhausen, in The Anthropological Eeview, 
London, 1869, p. 368.) 

More recent and even more revolting exemplifica- 
tions of this tendency to relapse into barbarism are the 
atrocities committed by Major Barttelot, and the con- 
duct of Mr. Jameson, of Stanley's Emin-Eelief Expedi- 
tion, who purchased a young negro girl and gave her to 
a horde of cannibals in order to make sketches from life 
of the manner in which she was torn in pieces and 
devoured. 

The atrocities still committed by the officials of the 
Belgian Government in Congo are a disgrace to a 
civilized people. Scores of natives have their hands cut 
off or are otherwise mutilated simply because they are 



BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 79 

unable to supply ivory 'and rubber enough to satisfy the 
insatiate greed of trafhckers in those articles. Soldiers 
in the service of the State are permitted to eat the bod- 
ies of those who have fallen in battle, since human flesh, 
thus obtained, furnishes the cheapest rations for the 
army. As the result of this policy races, who were not 
cannibals when they first came in contact with white 
men, have gradually become so through intercourse with 
cannibal troops under the command of Belgian oflB.cers. 
Thus the increase of cannibalism on the Congo is due 
to the domination of a European sovereign acting as the 
representative of the European powers. 

There are also instances on record of Englishmen, 
Dutchmen, and Frenchmen who in their warfare with 
Indians adopted from their savage foes the custom of 
scalping and torturing their captives. In fact, as Waitz 
has shown in his Anthropology (iii, 174), there is scarce- 
ly a vice of barbarous tribes which Europeans when 
removed from the restraints of civilization have not 
practised. In the South Sea islands they have in some 
cases become anthropophagous. 

Here we are suddenly brought face to face with the 
depressing fact that men, who are heirs to ages of in- 
tellectual culture and armed with all the powers 
and possibilities of good and evil which modern 
science has put into their hands, yet relapse morally to 
the level of rude cave dwellers and contemporaries 
of the mammoth in making their superiority of men- 
tal endowment and material equipment minister to 
deeds and passions worthy of the lowest stage of bar- 
barism. 

All emigration to wild regions is, in a greater or less 
degree, atavistic in its effects, and, by loosening or re- 



80 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

moving the many leading strings of association by 
which the average man is kept in an upright position 
and a straightforward course, lets him fall back and 
retrograde, and thus tends to bring him nearer to his 
flint-chipping neolithic ancestor. It throws each in- 
dividual upon his own ethical resources by releasing 
him from the constant though hardly conscious so- 
cial pressure of an environment which is the result- 
ant of long periods of human progress, and by which 
alone the masses of so-called civilized nations are pre- 
vented from relapsing into the original condition of the 
race. 

Happily, however, such extreme cases of moral re- 
version as those of the early emigrants to Australia 
and the recent explorers of Africa are only sporadic, 
and the ubiquity of humane and enlightened public 
opinion arising from greater frequency and rapidity 
of international intercourse, and causing its immedi- 
ate influence to be felt in the remotest and roughest 
border lands of savage and civilized life, will render 
them still rarer in the future. The telegraph and the 
telephone are making it daily more difficult and will 
eventually make it impossible for the most pushing 
pioneer wholly to lose communication with the advanc- 
ing body of organized forces behind him, or to break 
away from the control of that community of impulses 
and purposes, and that consensus of moral ideas and 
perceptions, which we call public conscience. This 
influence is beginning to penetrate even the darkest 
regions of Central Africa and to protect the unknown 
barbaric tribes against the ravages of Arab slave traders 
and the arbitrary authority of European adventurers. 
Each nation that joins in this combined movement is 



BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 81 

doubtless seeking, first • of all, to further its own com- 
mercial and colonial interests; but it suffices as an illus- 
tration of the prevailing spirit of the age that the basis 
on which they profess to unite is the broad principle 
of a common humanity. 



CHAPTER III. 

ETHICAL KELATIONS OF MAN" TO BEAST. 

Anthropocentric psychology and ethics. Teleological inferences 
from this postulate. Illustrations from Bernardin de Saint- 
Pierre and Gennadius. Its influence in checking the growth 
of science and the progress of hygiene. Natural phenomena 
regarded as portents. Astrology and horoscopy. Comets as 
warnings to mankind. Increase Mather's view. Bayle's ridi- 
cule of this theory. Notion that fruits and flowers exist only 
for man. The wasteful prodigality of Nature. Gray's senti- 
ment on the subject. The real function of the colour and odour 
of plants. Schopenhauer on the anthropocentric principle in 
Judaism and Christianity. The Hebrew cosmogony. Man's 
dominion and its practical effects according to Shelley and 
Burns. Observation of Mrs. Jameson. Celsus's stricture in- 
dorsed by Dr. Thomas Arnold. Paley's defective definition 
of virtue. Bishop Butler on the immortality of animals. 
Opinion of Barclay. Philozoic philosophy of Henry Hallam. 
Denial of animals' rights by Catholic theologians and by 
Protestant writers on ethics. Influence of such theories upon 
modern legislation. Exposure by Samuel Plimsoll and Henry 
Bergh of the horrors of cattle transportation. " Horses cheap- 
er than oats." American extravagance and recklessness. 
Erasmus Darwin's doctrine of the greatest possible happiness 
set aside by the science of evolution. 

Ethnocenteic geography^ whicli caused each petty 
tribe to regard itself as the centre of the earth, and 
geocentric astronomy, whicli caused mankind to regard 
the earth as the centre of the universe, are conceptions 

82 



ETHICAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO BEAST. 83 

that have been gradually outgrown and generally dis- 
carded — not, however, without leaving distinct and in- 
delible traces of themselves in human speech and con- 
duct. But this is not the case with anthropocentric 
psychology and ethics, w^hich treat man as a being 
essentially different and inseparably set apart from all 
other sentient creatures, to which he is bound by no 
ties of mental affinity or moral obligation. Neverthe- 
less, all these notions spring from the same root, having 
their origin in man's false and overw^eening conceit 
of himself as the member of a tribe, the inhabitant of a 
planet, or the lord of creation. 

It was upon this sort of anthropocentric assumption 
that teleologists used to build their arguments in proof 
of the existence and goodness of God as shown by the 
evidences of beneficent design in the world. All their 
reasonings in support of this doctrine were based upon 
the theory that the final purpose of every created thing 
is the promotion of human happiness. Take away this 
anthropocentric postulate, and the whole logical struc- 
ture tumbles into a heap of unfounded and irrelevant 
assertions leading to lame and impotent conclusions. 

Thus Bernardin de Saint-Pierre states that garlic, 
being a specific for maladies caused by marshy exhala- 
tions, grows in swampy places, in order that the anti- 
dote may be easily accessible to man when he becomes 
infected with malarious disease. Also the fruits of 
spring and summer, he adds, are peculiarly juicy, be- 
cause man needs them for his refreshment in hot 
weather; on the other hand, autumn fruits, like nuts, 
are oily, because oil generates heat and keeps men 
warm in winter. It is for man's sake, too, that in lands 
where it seldom or never rains there is always a heavy 



84 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

deposition of dew. If we can show that any product or 
phenomenon of N'ature is useful to us, we think we have 
discovered its sufficient raison d'etre, and extol the wis- 
dom and kindness of the Creator; but if anything is 
harmful to us we can not imagine why it should exist. 
How much intellectual acuteness and learning have been 
expended to reconcile the fact that the moon is visible 
only a very small part of the time, with the theory that 
it was intended to illuminate the earth in the absence 
of the sun, for the benefit of its inhabitants! 

Gennadius, a Greek presbyter, who flourished at 
Constantinople about the middle of the fifth century, 
remarks in his commentary on the first chapter of Gene- 
sis, that God created the beasts of the earth and the 
cattle after their kind on the same day on which he 
created man, in order that these creatures might be 
there ready to serve him. 

But it would be superfluous to multiply examples 
of the influence of this anthropocentric idea as it has 
worked itself out in the history of mankind. Every 
science has had to encounter its opposition, and it has 
been a stumbling-block in the way of every effort to 
enlarge human knowledge and to promote human hap- 
piness. It has tended to check the progress of hygienic 
research and sanitary reform; for if man is of such 
exceptional importance that his conduct or misconduct 
can bring down epidemics upon whole communities and 
vast continents as visitations of divine wrath, whoever 
seeks to ward off or to stay these punishments is guilty 
of a sacrilegious attempt to parry the blow aimed at the 
wicked by the arm of the Almighty, and, by thus set- 
ting himself in antagonism to God, becomes in fact 
an ally and adversary of the devil. Thus vaccination 



ETHICAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO BEAST. 85 

was denounced, not on the ground taken by its present 
opponents, that it is useless as a preventive of small- 
pox and a prolific source of other diseases, but on 
account of its real or supposed prophylactic effective- 
ness, since it impiously wrenched from the hand of the 
Deity one of his most fatal weapons of retribution. 

To what absurdities of presumption the anthropo- 
centric conception has paved the way is evident from 
the belief, once universally entertained, that the sun, 
moon, and stars were placed in the firmament with ex- 
press reference to man, and exerted a benign or bale- 
ful influence upon his destiny from the cradle to the 
grave. Owen Glendower's bombastic boast — 

... At my nativity 
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, 
Of burning cressets ; and at my birth 
The frame and huge foundation of the earth 
Shaked like a coward — 

was well answered by Hotspur: ^' Why, so it would have 
done at the same season if your mother's cat had but 
kittened, though yourself had ne'er been born." And 
yet this fulsome brag of the Welsh swashbuckler was 
only an extravagant statement of what the captious 
Henry Percy and his contemporaries all held to be 
virtually true. Poe embodies the same sentiment in 
his youthful poem, Al Aaraaf, and would fain preserve 
this brighter world of his fancy from the contagion 
of human evil — 

Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man. 

Astrology and horoscopy, from which even the keen 
intellects of Kepler and Tycho de Brahe could not dis- 
entangle theniselves, and to which the still more modern 



86 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

genius of Goethe paid a characteristic tribute in the 
story of his nativity, were only this anthropocentric 
conceit masquerading as science, and leaving vestiges 
of itself in such common words as "ill-starred" and 
" lunatic." 

Comets were universally regarded as portents of dis- 
asters, sent expressly as warnings for the reproof and 
reformation of mankind; tempests and lightnings were 
feared as harbingers of divine wrath and instruments 
of punishment for human transgression. According 
to the Eev. Increase Mather, God took the trouble to 
eclipse the sun in August, 1672, merely to prognosticate 
the death of the President of Harvard College and of 
two colonial governors, all of whom " died within a 
twelvemonth after." This is but a single example of 
the wide prevalence and general acceptance of a popular 
superstition constantly tested and easily proved by 
the logical fallacy 'post hoc ergo propter hoc. Bayle, 
in his Divers Thoughts on Comets (Pensees Diverses 
sur les Cometes), ridicules the foolish pride and vanity 
of man, who imagines that " he can not die without 
disturbing the whole course of Nature and compelling 
the heavens to put themselves to fresh expense in order 
to light his funeral pomp." 

Not only were the fruits of the earth made to grow 
for human sustenance, but the flowers of the field were 
supposed to bud and blossom, putting on their gayest 
attire and emitting their sweetest perfume, solely as a 
contribution to human happiness; and it was deemed 
one of the mysteries and mistakes of Nature, never too 
much to be puzzled over and wondered at, that these 
things should spring up and expend their beauty and 
fragrance in remote places untrodden by the foot of 



ETHICAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO BEAST. 87 

man. Gray expresses this feeling in the oft-quoted 
lines: 

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 

Science has finally and effectually taken this con- 
ceit out of man by showing that the flower blooms not 
for the purpose of giving him agreeable sensations, but 
for its own sake, and that it presumed to put forth 
sweet and beautiful blossoms long before he appeared 
on the earth as a rude cave-haunting and flint-chipping 
savage. 

The colour and odour of the plant are designed 
not so much to please man as to attract insects, which 
promote the process of fertilization and thus insure 
the preservation of the species. The gratification of 
man's aesthetic sense and taste for the beautiful does 
not enter into Nature's intentions; and although the 
flower may bloom unseen by any human eye, it does 
not on that account waste its sweetness, but fully ac- 
complishes its mission, provided there is a bee or a 
bug abroad to be drawn to it. That the fragrance 
and variegated petals are alluring to a vagrant insect 
is a condition af far more importance in determining 
the fate of the plant than that they should be charming 
to man. 

Plants, on the other hand, which depend upon the 
force of the wind for fructification, are not distin- 
guished for beauty of colour or sweetness of odour, 
since these qualities, however agreeable to man, would 
be wasted on the wind. This is an illustration of the 
prudent economy of Nature, who never indulges in su- 
perfluities or overburdens her products with useless 
attributes; but the test of utility which "great creat- 



88 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

ing Nature " sets up in such cases is little flattering to 
man, and has no reference to his tastes and suscepti- 
bilities, but is determined solely by the serviceableness 
of certain qualities to the plant itself in the struggle 
for existence. 

According to Schopenhauer, anthropocentric ego- 
ism is a fundamental and fatal defect in the psycho- 
logical and ethical teachings of both Judaism and 
Christianity, and has been the source of untold misery 
to myriads of sentient and highly sensitive organisms. 
" These religions," he says, " have unnaturally severed 
man from the animal world, to which he essentially 
belongs, and placed him on a pinnacle apart, treating 
all lower creatures as mere things; whereas Brahman- 
ism and Buddhism insist not only upon his kinship 
with all forms of animal life, but also upon his vital 
connection with all animated Nature, binding him up 
into intimate relationship with them by metempsycho- 
sis/' 

In the Hebrew cosmogony there is no continuity 
in the process of creation, whereby the genesis of man 
is in any wise connected with the genesis of the lower 
animals. After the Lord God, by his fiat, had produced 
beasts, birds, fishes, and creeping things, he ignored all 
this mass of protoplastic and organic material, and 
took an entirely new departure in the production of 
man, whom he formed out of the dust of the ground. 
Science shows him to have been originally a little higher 
than the ape, out of which he was gradually and pain- 
fully evolved; Scripture takes him out of his environ- 
ment, severs him from his antecedents, and makes him 
a little lower than the angels. Upon the being thus 
arbitrarily created absolute dominion is conferred over 



ETHICAL RELATIONS OP MAN TO BEAST. 89 

every beast of the earth and every fowl of the air, 
which are to be to him " for meat." They are given 
over to his supreme and irresponsible control, without 
the slightest injunction of kindness or the faintest 
suggestion of any duties or obligations toward them. 

Again, when the earth is to be renewed and re- 
plenished after the deluge, the same principles are 
reiterated and the same line of demarcation is drawn 
and even deepened. God blesses ISToah and his sons, 
bids them "be fruitful and multiply," and then adds, 
as regards the lower animals: " The fear of you and 
the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth 
and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth 
upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into 
your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing 
that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green 
herb have I given you all things." 

This tyrannical mandate is not mitigated by any 
intimation of the merciful manner in which the human 
autocrat should treat the creatures thus subjected to 
his capricious will. On the contrary, the only thing 
that he is positively commanded to do with reference 
to them is to eat them. They are to be regarded by him 
simply as food, having no more rights and deserving 
no more consideration as means of sating his appetite 
than a grain of corn or a blade of grass. 

The practical working of . this decree has been 
summed up by Shelley, with his wonted force and suc- 
cinctness, when he says, " The supremacy of man is, 
like Satan's, a supremacy of pain." Burns regrets the 
fatal effect of the sovereignty thus conferred upon 
the human race in destroying the mutual sympathy 
and confidence which should exist between the lord 



90 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

of creation and the lower animals in the lines addressed 
To a Mouse, on turning her up in her Nest with the 
Plough, November, 1785: 

I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
Has broken Nature's social union, 
An' justifies that ill opinion 

Which makes thee startle 
At me, thy poor earth-born companion, 

An' fellow -mortal. 

In the subsequent annals of the world we have ample 
commentaries on this primitive code written in the 
blood of helpless, innocent, and confiding creatures, 
which, although called dumb and incapable of record- 
ing their sufferings, yet 

. . . have long tradition and swift speech. 
Can tell with touches and sharp-darting cries 
Whole histories of timid races taught 
To breathe in terror by red-handed man. 

Indeed, ever since Abel's firstlings of the flock were 
more acceptable than Cain's bloodless offerings of the 
fruits of the fields, priests have performed the func- 
tions of butchers, converting sacred shrines into 
shambles in their endeavours to pander to the gross ap- 
petites of cruel and carnivorous gods. Cain's offering 
was rejected, says Dr. Kitto, because "he declined to 
enter into the sacrificial institution." In other words, 
he would not shed the blood of beasts to gratify the 
Lord — a refusal which we can not but regard as ex- 
ceedingly commendable in Adam's first-born. 

" I do not remember," observed Mrs. Jameson, " ever 
to have heard the kind and just treatment of animals 
enforced on Christian principles or made the subject 
of a sermon." George Herbert was a man of gentle 



ETHICAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO BEAST. 91 

spirit and ready hand for the relief of all forms of 
human distress, and in his book entitled A Priest to 
the Temple, or the Country Parson, lays down rules 
and precepts for the guidance of the clergyman in all 
relations of life, even to the minutest circumstances 
and remotest contingencies incident to parochial care. 
But this tender-hearted man does not deem it necessary 
for the parson to take the slightest interest in animals, 
and does not utter a word of counsel as to the manner 
in which his parishioners should be taught their duties 
toward the creatures so wholly dependent upon them. 
Indeed, no treatise on pastoral theology ever touches 
this topic, nor is it ever made the theme of a discourse 
from the pulpit, or of systematic instruction in the 
Sunday school. 

Neither the synagogue nor the church, neither 
sandedrin nor ecclesiastical council, has ever regarded 
this subject as falling within its scope, and sought 
to inculcate as a dogma or to enforce by decree 
a proper consideration for the rights of the lower 
animals. One of the chief objections urged by Celsus 
more than seventeen centuries ago against Chris- 
tianity was that it ^* considers everything as having 
been created solely for man." This stricture is in- 
dorsed by Dr. Thomas Arnold, of Rugby, who also 
animadverts on the evils growing out of the anthropo- 
centric character of Christianity as a scheme of redemp- 
tion and a system of theodicy. "It would seem,'^ he 
says, " as if the primitive Christian, by laying so much 
stress upon a future life in contradistinction to this life, 
and placing the lower creatures out of the pale of hope, 
placed them at the same time out of the pale of sym- 
pathy, and thus laid the foundation for this utter dis- 
7 



92 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

regard of animals in the light of onr fellow-creattires. 
The definition of virtue among the early Christians 
was the same as Paley's — that it was good performed 
for the sake of insuring eternal happiness — which 
of course excluded all the so-called brute creatures. 
Kind, loving, submissive, conscientious, much-enduring, 
we know them to be; but because we deprive them of 
all stake in the future, because they have no selfish, 
calculated aim, these are not virtues; yet if we say ' a 
vicious horse,^ why not say ' a virtuous horse ' ? " 

We are ready enough, adds Dr. Arnold, to endow 
animals with our bad moral qualities, but grudge them 
the possession of our good ones. The Germans, whose 
natural and hereditary sympathy with the brute cre- 
ation is stronger than that of any other Western people, 
speak of horses as " fromm/' pious, not in the religious, 
but in the primary and proper sense of the word, mean- 
ing thereby kind and docile. The English " gentle " 
and the French ^' gentil/' which are used in the same 
connection, refer to good conduct as the result of fine 
breeding. 

Archdeacon Paley's definition of virtue, to which Dr. 
Arnold adverts, is essentially anthropocentric and in- 
tensely egoistic. " Virtue," he says, " is the doing 
good to mankind in obedience to the will of God, for 
the sake of everlasting happiness.'^ In order to be 
virtuous, according to this extremely narrow and wholly 
inadequate conception of virtue, we must, in the first 
place, do good to mankind, our conduct toward the brute 
creation not being taken into the account; secondly, 
our action must be in obedience to the will of God, thus 
ruling out all generous impulses originating in the 
spontaneous desire to do good; thirdly, we must have 



ETHICAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO BEAST. 93 

an eye single to our own supreme personal advantage — 
in other words, our conduct must be utterly selfish, 
spring not merely from momentary pleasure or tem- 
porary profit, but from far-seeing calculations of the 
effect it may have in securing our eternal happiness. 
Thus the virtuous man becomes the incarnation of the 
intensest self-love and self-seeking, and virtue the 
synonym of excessive venality. From a moral point of 
view, there is no greater merit in " otherworldliness " 
than in worldliness, and no reason why the endeavour to 
attain personal happiness in a future life should differ in 
quality from the effort to make everything minister 
to our personal happiness in the present life. 

" The whole subject of the brute creation,'' says Dr. 
Arnold, " is to me one of such painful mystery that I 
dare not approach it.'' The mental distress experienced 
in such cases arises from the fact that the subject is ap- 
proached from the wrong side and surveyed from a 
false point of view. Traditional theology and an- 
thropocentric ethics are brought into confiict with the 
better impulses of a broad and generous nature and the 
sharp antagonism could hardly fail to be a source of 
perplexity and pain. " Charity," says Lord Bacon, 
" will hardly water the ground, where it must first 
fill a pool " ; and of all pools the hardest to fill is that 
which is dug in the dry, gravelly soil of human egot- 
ism. 

Theocritus, the father of Greek idyllic poetry, rep- 
resents Hercules as exclaiming, after he had slain the 
Nemean lion, " Hades received a monster soul " ; and 
he saw nothing incongruous in the spirit of the dead 
beast joining the company of the departed spirits of 
men in the lower world. Sydney Smith says, in speak- 



94: EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

ing of the soul of the brute, " To this soul some have 
impiously allowed immortality." Why such a belief 
should be deemed impious it is dilhcult to discover. 
The question which the psychologist has to consider 
is not whether the doctrine is impious, but whether 
it is true. No scientific opinion has ever been ad- 
vanced that has not seemed impious to some minds, 
and been denounced and persecuted as such by ecclesi- 
astical authorities. 

Bishop Butler, on the contrary, in his work on The 
Analogy of Eeligion, Natural and Eevealed, to the 
Constitution and Course of Nature, declares that " we 
can not find anything throughout the whole analogy 
of Nature to afford us even the slightest presumption 
that animals ever lose their living powers." He ad- 
mits that his argument in support of the doctrine of 
a future life proves the immortality of brutes as well as 
that of man, and thus recognises their spiritual kin- 
ship. 

An eminent Scotch physician and anatomist, Dr. 
John Barclay, in his Inquiry into the Opinions, An- 
cient and Modern, concerning Life and Organization 
(1825), urges the probable immortality of the lower 
animals, which, he thinks, are " reserved, as forming 
many of the accustomed links in the chain of being, 
and by preserving the chain entire, contribute in the 
future state, as they do here, to the general beauty 
and variety of the universe, a source not only of sublime 
but of perpetual delight." The author seems to infer 
the continued existence of the brute creation from the 
fact that it forms an essential part of universal being, 
and that its total disappearance would mar the per- 
fection of the next world, which should be more per- 



ETHICAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO BEAST. 95 

feet than this world. He assumes, however, that the 
lower animals are endowed with immortality, not so 
much from psychological necessity or for their own 
sake as sentient and intelligent creatures, as for man's 
sake, in order that their presence may minister to his 
pleasure by forming an attractive feature in the heaven- 
ly landscape. It is, therefore, solely from anthropo- 
centric considerations that they are granted this lease 
of eternal life; just as " the poor Indian " is repre- 
sented by the poet as looking forward to the possession 
of happy hunting fields after death, where he may fol- 
low with keener enjoyment his favourite pursuit, and 
"his faithful dog shall bear him company." 

More than fifty years ago Henry Hallam made the 
following observations, which are remarkable as an an- 
ticipation of the ethical corollary to the doctrine of 
evolution: "Few at present, who believe in the im- 
mortality of the human soul, would deny the same to 
the elephant; but it must be owned that the discov- 
eries of zoology have pushed this to consequences which 
some might not readily adopt. The spiritual being of 
a sponge revolts a little our prejudices; yet there is 
no resting place, and we must admit this or be content 
to sink ourselves into a mass of medullary fibre. Brutes 
have been as slowly emancipated in philosophy as some 
classes of mankind have been in civil polity; their souls, 
we see, were almost universally disputed to them at 
the end of the seventeenth century, even by those who 
did not absolutely bring them down to machinery. 
Even within the recollection of many, it was common 
to deny them any kind of reasoning faculty, and to solve 
their most sagacious actions by the vague word in- 
stinct. We have come in late years to think better of 



96 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

our humble companions; and, as usual in similar cases, 
the preponderant bias seems rather too much of a level- 
ling character." During the half century that has 
elapsed since these words were written, not only has 
zoology made still greater progress in the direction 
indicated, but a new science of zoopsychology has sprung 
up, in which the mental traits and moral qualities of 
the lower animals have been, not merely recorded as 
curious and comical anecdotes, but systematically in- 
vestigated and philosophically explained. In conse- 
quence of this radical change of view, human society 
in general has become more philozoic, not upon re- 
ligious or sentimental but upon strictly scientific 
grounds, and developed a sympathy and solidarity with 
the animal world, having its sources less in the tender 
and transitory emotions of the heart than in the pro- 
found and permanent convictions of the mind. 

In an essay published a few years ago in The Dub- 
lin Review (October, 1887, p. 418), the Eight Eev. 
John Cuthbert Hedley, Bishop of N'ewport and Menevia, 
asserts that animals have no rights, because they are not 
rational creatures and do not exist for their own sake. 
" The brute creation have only one purpose, and that 
is to minister to man, or to man's temporary abode." 
This is the doctrine set forth more than six centuries 
ago by Thomas Aquinas, and recently expounded by 
Dr. Leopold Schutz, professor in the theological semi- 
nary at Trier, in an elaborate work entitled The So- 
called Understanding of Animals or Animal Instinct. 
This writer treats the theory of the irrationality of 
brutes as a dogma of the Church, denoimcing all who 
hold that the mental difference between man and beast 
is one of degree, and not of kind, as " enemies of the 



ETHICAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO^ BEAST. 97 

Christian faith " ; whereas those who chng to the old 
notion of instinctive or automatic action in explain- 
ing the phenomena of animal intelligence are extolled 
as " champions of pure truth/' 

In an article on The Lower Animals, in the Catholic 
Dictionary of W. E. Addis and T. Arnold, published 
in 1884, it is maintained that "the brutes are made 
for man, who has the same right over them which he 
has over plants and stones," and that it is lawful for 
him to put them to death and to torment them " even 
for the purposes of recreation." A similar view is taken 
by Philip Austin in a volume on Our Duty to Animals 
(London, 1885), in which the author, treating the sub- 
ject "in the light of Christian philosophy," comes to 
the conclusion " that kindness to the brutes is a -mere 
Tvork of supererogation." 

If it was the Creator's intention that the lower ani- 
mals should minister to man, the divine plan has proved 
to be a failure, since the number of animals which, after 
centuries of effort, he has succeeded in bringing more 
or less under his dominion is extremely small. Millions 
of living creatures fly in the air, crawl on the earth, 
dwell in the waters, and roam the fields and the forests, 
over which he has no control whatever. I^ot one in 
twenty thousand is fit for food, and of those which 
are edible he does not actually eat more than one in 
ten thousand. In explanation of this lack of effect- 
iveness in the enforcement of a divine decree, it has 
been asserted that man lost his dominion over the lower 
world to a great extent when he lost dominion over 
himself; but this view is wholly untenable even from 
a biblical standpoint, inasmuch as the proniise of uni- 
versal sovereignty was renewed after the deluge 



98 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

and expressed in even stronger terms than before the 
fall. 

Dugald Stewart admits " a certain latitude of action, 
which enables the brutes to accommodate themselves 
in some measure to their accidental situations." In 
this arrangement he sees a design or purpose of " render- 
ing them, in consequence of this power of accommoda- 
tion, incomparably more serviceable to our race than 
they would have been if altogether subjected, like mere 
matter, to the influence of regular and assignable 
causes." Of the value of this power of adaptation to 
the animal itself in the struggle for existence the 
Scotch philosopher had no conception. 

In the great majority of treatises on moral science, 
especially in such as base their teachings on distinctive- 
ly Christian tenets, there is seldom any allusion to 
man's duty toward animals. Dr. Wayland, who has 
perhaps the most to say on this point, sums up his 
remarks in a note apologetically appended to the body 
of his work. He denies them the possession of " any 
moral faculty," and declares that in all cases " our right 
is paramount and must extinguish theirs." We are to 
treat them kindly, feed and shelter them adequately, 
and "kill them with the least possible pain." To 
inflict suffering upon them for our amusement is wrong, 
since it tends to harden men and render them brutal 
and ferocious in temper. 

Dr. Hickok takes a similar view and broadly asserts 
that "neither animate nor inanimate Nature has any 
rights," and that man is not bound to it " by any duties 
for its own sake. ... In the light of his own worthi- 
ness as end, ... he is not permitted to mar the face 
of Nature, nor wantonly and uselessly to injure any 



ETHICAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO BEAST. 99 

of her products/' Maliciously breaking a crystal, de- 
facing a gem, girdling a tree, crushing a flower, paint- 
ing flaming advertisements on rocks, and worrying and 
torturing animals are thus placed in the same category 
as acts tending to degrade man ethically and aesthet- 
ically, rendering him coarse and rude, and making him 
not only a very disagreeable associate, but also, in the 
long run, " an unsafe member of civil society." These 
things are considered right or wTong solely from the 
standpoint of their influence upon human elevation 
or degradation. " Nature possesses no product too 
sacred for man. All ^N'ature is for man, not man for it." 

The same opinion is held by the Jesuit, Victor 
Cathrein, who, in a recently published review of Bregen- 
zer's Thier-Ethik (Stimmen aus Marien-Lach, February 
7, 1895, p. 164), denies that man has any duties toward 
the lower animals, and asserts that any cruelty he 
may inflict upon them involves no moral wrong difler- 
ent in kind from that which he commits in wantonly 
tearing or dirtying his own clothes. According to this 
doctrine, animals have no more rights than inanimate 
objects, and it is no worse from an ethical point of 
view to flay the forearm of an ape or lacerate the leg 
of a dog than to rip open the sleeve of a coat or rend 
a pair of pantaloons. The plain statement of such a 
theory is its sufficient refutation, and we doubt whether 
even such a severe dogmatist and uncompromising cham- 
pion of Catholic principles as Victor Cathrein, S. J., 
would be able to witness all these operations with equal 
equanimity. 

Man is as truly a part and product of ^N'ature as any 
other animal, and this attempt to set him up on an iso- 
lated point outside of it is philosophically false and 



100 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

morally pernicious. It makes fundamental to ethics a 
principle which once prevailed universally in politics 
and still survives in the legal fiction that the king can 
do no wrong. Louis XIY of France firmly believed 
himself to be the rightful and absolute owner of the 
lives and property of his subjects. He held that his 
rights as monarch were paramount and extinguished 
theirs, that they possessed nothing too sacred for him, 
and the leading moralists and statists of his day con- 
firmed him in this extravagant opinion of his royal 
prerogatives. All the outrages which the mad Czar, 
Ivan the Terrible, perpetrated on the inhabitants of 
Novgorod and Moscow, man has felt and for the most 
part still feels himself justified in inflicting on domestic 
animals and beasts of venery. 

It is only within the last century that legislators 
have begun to recognise the claims of brutes to just 
treatment and to enact laws for their protection. Tor- 
turing a beast, if punished at all, was treated solely as 
an offence against property, like breaking a window, 
barking a tree, or committing any other act known 
in Scotch law as '' malicious mischief." It was regarded, 
not as a wrong done to the suffering animal, but as an 
injury done to its owner, which could be made good 
by the payment of money. N'ot until a little more than 
a hundred years ago was such an act changed from a 
civil into a criminal offence, for which a simple fine 
was not deemed a sufficient reparation. It was thus 
placed in the category of crimes which, like arson, bur- 
glary, and murder, are wrongs against society, for which 
no pecuniary restitution or compensation can make 
adequate atonement. 

Even this legislative reform is by no means universal. 



ETHICAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO BEAST. IQl 

The criminal code of the German Empire still punishes 
with a fine of not more than fifty thalers any person 
" who publicly, or in such wise as to excite scandal, ma- 
liciously tortures or barbarously maltreats animals." 
This sort of cruelty is classified with drawing plans of 
fortresses, using official stamps and seals, and putting 
royal or princely coats of arms on signs without per- 
mission, making noises which disturb the public peace, 
and playing games of hazard on the streets or market 
places. The man is punished, not because he puts the 
animal to pain, but because his conduct is offensive 
to his fellow-men and wounds their sensibilities. The 
law sets no limit to his cruelty, provided he may prac- 
tise it in private. 

Again, in all enactments regulating the transporta- 
tion of live stock our legislation is still exceedingly de- 
fective. The great majority of people have no con- 
ception of the unnecessary and almost incredible suffer- 
ing inflicted by man upon the lower animals in merely 
conveying them from one place to another in order 
to meet the demands of the market. It is well known 
that German shippers of sheep to England often lose 
one third of their consignment by suffocation, owing 
to overcrowding and imperfect ventilation. Beasts are 
still made to endure all the horrors to which slavers 
were once wont to subject their cargoes of human chat- 
tels in stifling holds on the notorious " middle passage." 
(Some conception of the cruelties involved in this 
traffic may be obtained by reading Samuel PlimsolFs 
little volume entitled Cattle Ships, published in London 
in 1890.) 

The late Henry Bergh states that the loss on cattle 
by " shrinkage " in transporting them from the West- 



102 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

ern to the Eastern portion of the United States is from 
ten to fifteen per cent. The average shrinkage of an 
ox is one hundred and twenty pounds, and that of a 
sheep or hog from fifteen to twenty pounds; and the 
annual loss in money arising from this cause is estimated 
at more than forty million dollars. The amount of 
animal suffering which these statistics imply is fearful 
to contemplate. Here and there a solitary voice is heard 
in our legislative halls protesting against the horrors 
of this traffic, but so powerful is the lobby influence 
of wealthy corporations that no law can be passed to 
prevent them. Not a word ever falls from the pulpit 
in rebuke of such barbarity; meanwhile the railroad mag- 
nates pay liberal pew rents out of the profits, and listen 
with complacency one day in the week to denunciations 
of Jeroboam's idolatry and the wicked deeds of Ahab 
and Ahaziah, as recorded in the chronicles of the kings 
of Israel. 

The horse, one of the noblest and most sensitive of 
domestic animals, is put to all kinds of torture by dock- 
ing, pricking, clipping, peppering, and the use of bear- 
ing reins solely to gratify human vanity. As a reward 
for severe and faithful toil he is often fed with un- 
wholesome and insufficient fodder on the economical 
principle announced by the manager of a New York 
tramway that " horses are cheaper than oats." It is 
an actual fact, verified by Henry Bergh, that the horses 
of this large corporation were fed on a mixture of meal, 
gypsum, and marble dust, until the Society for the Pre- 
vention of Cruelty to Animals interfered and finally 
succeeded in putting a stop to the practice. 

The Americans, as a people, are notorious for the 
"recklessness with which they squander the products of 



ETHICAL KELATIONS OF MAN TO BEAST. 103 

I^ature, of which their country is so exceedingly pro- 
lific. This extravagance extends to all departments of 
public, social, and domestic life. No land less rich in 
material resources could have borne for any length of 
time the wretched mismanagement of its finances to 
which the United States has been subjected ever since 
and even before the close of the civil war. There is not 
a government in Europe that would not have been 
broken down and rendered bankrupt by the tremendous 
and wholly unnecessary strain put upon it by crass igno- 
rance of the most elementary principles of finance and 
demagogical tampering with the public credit. The 
same w^asteful spirit involves also, as we have seen, 
immense suffering to animals on the part of soulless 
and unscrupulous corporations, in which intense greed 
of gain is not mitigated by the influence of individual 
kindness, and by which horses are treated as mere 
machines, to be worked to their utmost capacity at the 
smallest expense, and neat cattle as so much butcher's 
meat to be brought to market in the quickest and cheap- 
est manner. 

Erasmus Darwin, in his Ph3rtologia, or the Philoso- 
phy of Agriculture and Gardening (London, 1800), en- 
deavours to vindicate the goodness of God in permitting 
the destruction of the low^er by the higher animals on 
the ground that " more pleasurable sensation exists in 
the w^orld, as the organic matter is taken from a state 
of less irritability and less sensibility and converted 
into a greater." By this arrangement, he thinks, the 
supreme sum of possible happiness is secured to sentient 
beings. Thus it may be disagreeable for the mouse to 
be caught and converted into the flesh of the cat, for 
the lamb to be devoured by the wolf, for the toad to 



104: EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

be swallowed by the serpent, and for sheep, swine, and 
kine to be served up as roasts and ragouts for man; 
but in all such cases, he argues, the pain inflicted is far 
less than the amount of pleasure ultimately procured. 
But how is it when a finely organized human being, 
with infinite capabilities of happiness in its highest 
forms, is suddenly transmuted into the bodily substance 
of a boa constrictor or a tiger? No one will seriously 
assert that the drosera, Dioncea muscipula, and other 
insectivorous and carnivorous plants are organisms 
superior in sensitiveness to those which they devour, 
or that this transformation of animal into vegetable 
structure increases the sum of pleasurable sensation 
m the world. The doctrine of evolution, which regards 
these antagonisms as mere episodes in the universal 
struggle for existence, has forever set aside this sort 
of theodicy and put an end to all teleological attempts 
to infer from the nature and operations of creation the 
moral character of the Creator. 



CHAPTER lY. 

METEMPSYCHOSIS. 

Universality of the belief in the transmigration of souls. Concep- 
tion of immortality among primitive tribes. Strong faith of 
the savage. Filial affection as exemplified by parricide. Per- 
sistence of the dogma of metempsychosis. Traces of it in Ju- 
daism and Christianity. Elect Israelitic souls. Metempsy- 
chosis taught by the Manichaeans and used by Origen to 
explain divine predestination. Pre-existence held by Pytha- 
goras, Plato, and other Greek philosophers and assumed to be 
true by Jesus. Augustine's commentary on the Golden Ass of 
Appuleius. Goethe's confession. Appuleius and Czeslav Czyn- 
ski as hypnotizers. Relation of zoolatry to metempsychosis. 
Animals as incarnations of ghosts and demons. Metempsy- 
chosis as the metaphorical expression of human aspiration and 
evolution. The spiritual law of like seeking like in the prede- 
termination of character. Indian conception of fate and free 
will illustrated by modern statistics of crime, suicide, and 
other social phenomena. Plato's theory of the origin of intui- 
tive knowledge. " Essential spissitude." Lessing on the pos- 
sibility of more than five senses in man. Neo-Lamarckism. 
Pervading influence of pantheism in the Orient. Indian athe- 
ists. Brahmanical and Buddhistic eschatology : absorption 
and extinction of the individual soul as the radical cure of 
egotism. Paul and Nanak. The pantheistic compared with 
the Christian scheme of salvation from an ethical point of 
view. Transmigration of souls and transmutation of species. 
Conservation of force and imperishableness of spirit. Thomas 
Aquinas's untenable distinction between human and sub- 
human souls. Moral bearing of metempsychosis. Orientals 
in their treatment of animals not alwavs true to their religious 
105 



106 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

precepts. Protection of animals as property. Panpsychic 
philosophy. Societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. 
Hospitals for beasts in India. Monier Williams's description 
of the Panjara Pol. Mantegazza's account of such an insti- 
tution. The "Bai Sakarbai." King Thibo and Barnum. 
European hospitals for animals. The Nev^ York Veterinary 
Hospital. Lecky's observations. Oriental and Occidental 
treatment of animals contrasted. Lack of pertinent biblical 
texts. Quandary of a Protestant parson. Deficiencies of He- 
brew and Christian Scriptures. Animals in hagiology. Eccle- 
siastical excommunication of animals. Festivals of St. An- 
thony in Rome and of St. Leonard in Tolz. Legends of St. 
Francis of Assisi. Indifference of the Catholic Church to the 
sufferings of animals. Dictum of Pius the Ninth. Its prac- 
tical application by Italians. Spanish bullfights and the 
popes. Beneficent influence of evolutionary science and com- 
parative psychology upon the humane treatment of animals. 

It is especially in man's conception of his relations 
to the lower animals and of the character and degree 
of their psychical development and mental endowment 
that anthropocentric prejudices and prepossessions con- 
tinue to exert a perverting and pernicious influence. 

Opposed to this tendency, both as a philosophical 
principle and in its bearings on practical ethics, is the 
doctrine of the transmigration of souls. If the truth 
of a tenet may be determined by the majority of suf- 
frages in its favour, if the validity of a theory bears any 
proportion to the number of persons who have ac- 
cepted it and found comfort and consolation in it, if 
the famous test quod semper, quod udique, quod ab om- 
nibus, which the Eomish Church has made the cri- 
terion of its own claim to catholicity, has any force or 
fitness as furnishing a ground of belief, it would be 
difficult to discover among the multiform creeds of 
mankind any. doctrine resting upon a broader and firmer 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 107 

foundation than that which is known as metempsy- 
chosis. 

Indeed, if such indorsement is to be regarded as 
any proof of genuineness, this theory may be said, with- 
out exaggeration, to be stamped with the seal of almost 
universal consent, since it has been found to be inherent 
in or engrafted upon nearly every known school of 
philosophy and system of religion, and to have been 
held, in some of its varied forms, by men in all ages, 
in all lands, in all conditions of life, and in all stages 
of barbarism and civilization. 

The belief in the transmigration of souls and in 
their progressive improvement through successive stages 
of incarnation is common to the aboriginal tribes of 
every land, and may be regarded as the earliest and 
most general form in which the conception of immor- 
tality takes expression. To the mind of the primitive 
man the idea of the continued existence of the soul 
in a disembodied state is utterly incomprehensible, and 
would be equivalent to its permanent extinction. After 
having come in contact with Europeans and learned 
to appreciate their superiority, the negro's ideal of im- 
mortality is to animate, after death, the body of a 
white man. One of the strongest incentives of the 
savage to distinguish himself in battle is the hope of 
being rewarded for his prowess by being born again 
into a higher tribal position as a mighty chieftain or 
a powerful medicine man. So firm is his conviction 
of this possibility, that he often courts danger and craves 
death in order to better his condition by a new birth. 

Culture is critical and sceptical in its relations to 
the unseen world and touching all that lies beyond 
the bourn of the present life. Only barbarism is capable 
8 



108 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

of begetting the intense and implicit faith that never 
questions the words of the priest or suspects the wiles 
of the wizard. This crass credulity is characteristic of 
infant intelligence, and disappears with the mental 
growth and maturity of the race. Where it exists in full 
force it always produces a fearlessness bordering on 
fanaticism, as in the soldiery of the Sikh Guru and 
the Mohammedan Mahdi, or as in the case of the 
Congo negress, who put such perfect confidence in the 
protecting power of her fetiches, that she unhesitat- 
ingly placed her foot on a block and permitted it to 
be struck off with an ax, and could hardly believe that 
amulets and charms had failed to prevent the natural 
effects of the blow. The same amount of superstitious 
assurance in a civilized man would be regarded as con- 
clusive proof of his insanity. We have an example 
of this kind in the sect known as the " peculiar people,^* 
who, not having outgrown the healing methods en- 
joined and employed by the Christian Church in the 
first century, are constantly coming into conflict with 
the hygienic regulations established and enforced by 
Christian governments in the nineteenth century. 

With what unwavering trust the old German war- 
rior had his weapons, his wives, his horses, and his 
slaves buried in his dolmen, never doubting that they 
would go with him and be ready for his service in the 
next world! He was the best and foremost man of his 
time; but should one of his descendants of to-day at- 
tempt to express in like manner his firm faith in the 
immortality of the soul, he would be denounced as a 
dangerous religious " crank," and summarily arrested 
by the police. In Polynesia it was thought to be the 
duty of the child to put the parents to death as soon 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 109 

as the plij'sical powers began to show symptoms of 
decay. The purpose of the parricide was not to rid 
himself of a burden, but sprung solely from feelings of 
filial affection and prescriptive obligation, and from 
the desire that his parents might escape the infirmities 
of old age and enter in full vigour upon the future 
life. The parents consented to the act and were happy 
in the prospect of speedy rejuvenation in the realms 
of the blest. So, too, among the Battas of Sumatra, 
a gentle and kindly race, the father, when he feels the 
signs of approaching old age, begs his sons to kill and 
eat him. On the day appointed for the performance 
of this filial duty, the old man climbs up into a tree, 
round which his sons stand, beating upon the trunk 
and singing a sort of dirge, the burden of which is: 
" The season has come, the fruit is ripe and must fall." 
Thereupon the old man descends, and is solemnly slain 
and lovingly devoured. But where is the Christian, 
however zealous and sincere, who would run so great 
a risk, or whose faith in the resurrection of the dead 
and the life everlasting would stand such a terrible 
test? If he could be found, his proper place would be, 
not in the sanctuary of the saints, but in an asylum for 
the insane. 

Metempsychosis is not merely a dogma of the past 
or lingering survival of primitive beliefs. It is still a 
living psychological principle and practical precept of 
religion, and numbers its adherents by millions, includ- 
ing all grades of enlightenment, from the African or 
Australian savage to the Oriental sage, and all degrees 
and developments of spiritual aspiration, from the 
rudest rubbish worship of the Loango fetichist to the 
most refined mysticism of the European philosopher. It 



110 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

appears with the earliest dawn of Indian speculation, and 
pervades the whole vast, subtile, and complicated web 
of Brahnianical metaphysics. It is the central and 
sustaining root of that widespreading banyan of Bud- 
dhistic ethics, which extends its ample and hospitable 
shade over the entire realm of animated nature, and 
gives impartial shelter and protection to every form 
of animal life. It constituted an integral part of the 
priestly wisdom of Egypt, fragments of which have 
been preserved and transmitted to us in the so-called 
Book of the Dead. The custom of embalming the de- 
ceased grew out of the belief that the souls of the de- 
parted would, after long wanderings and numerous 
transformations, return to re-inhabit their human 
bodies, and undergo again in this form various trials 
and purifications preparatory to a final and eternal 
union with Osiris. According to Herodotus (ii, 123), 
this transmigration embraced in its circuit the prin- 
cipal animals of the earth, the sea, and the air, and took 
three thousand years for its accomplishment. Plastic 
and pictorial illustrations of this doctrine are found on 
Egyptian monuments and papyri, as, for example, where 
the soul of a glutton is represented as being borne to 
Hades in the form of a hog. 

Even the Jews, notwithstanding the essential in- 
consistency of the theory of transmigration with their 
cosmogony and the prevailing spirit of their sacred 
scriptures, borrowed it, together with the conception 
of a future life, from their conquerors during the Baby- 
lonian captivity; and a tenderer feeling toward the 
lower animals is clearly perceptible among them in 
consequence of their long and intimate contact with 
Assyrian and Persian ideas and habits of thought. It 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 1 1 1 

finds, therefore, as one would naturally expect, its 
most frequent expression and fullest unfolding in the 
apochryphal and exegetieal literature of the Hebrews, 
while in the so-called canonical writings there are only 
faint and comparatively few traces of it. Thus the 
author of the Book of Wisdom says of himself: " I was 
a well-conditioned child and had received a good soul; 
and, since I was still good, I went into an immaculate 
body." The Cabala declares still more emphatically 
that " all souls are subject to the trials of transmigra- 
tion." The Talmud reiterates the same thought. Many 
of the most eminent rabbis taught that the souls of men 
are sometimes condemned to inhabit the bodies of 
women as a punishment for sins of effeminacy and for 
mean and unmanly deeds, thus producing such mon- 
strosities as amazons and viragoes. They also ascribed 
barrenness in women to the penal possession of a male 
soul, in which case she was enjoined to entreat the 
Lord to pardon her offence, committed in a former 
body, and graciously to grant her the power of child- 
bearing by endowing her with scintillations of a female 
soul. They maintained, furthermore, that in the be- 
ginning God created a certain number of Jew souls 
as his elect, and that these souls constantly return to 
animate the bodies of successive generations of the 
chosen people, and will remain a select source of spirit- 
ual supply as long as the seed of Abraham continues 
to dwell upon the earth. This is also supposed to ac- 
count for the rare persistency of race peculiarities 
which characterizes Israelites. According to this theory, 
Jew souls never stray into Gentile bodies, though they 
are frequently m.ade to atone for their sins by becom- 
ing incarnate in beasts. It is also stated that when 



112 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

this process of transmigration and purification is com- 
plete, and every Jew soul animates the body of a just 
Jew, then the end of the world will come. It might 
seem to many that to make this final event dependent 
upon such a remarkable concurrence of circumstances 
and happy condition of things would be equivalent to 
its indefinite postponement. 

Of all Christian sectaries, the Manichgeans were 
most considerate and careful of the lower animals, and 
this kindly attitude of mind was due, in a large meas- 
ure, to the strong admixture of Oriental ideas in their 
■ system of belief. They held that the souls of men 
undergo transformations, passing successively into the 
bodies of beasts and birds and reptiles, partly as a 
method of punishment and' partly as a means of growth 
and a process of purgation from the spiritually con- 
taminating lusts of the flesh. Finally, after having 
been bathed in the sacred water of the moon and 
burned in the sacred fire of the sun and thus cleansed 
from all traces of material pollution, they become fit 
for admission, as pure spiritual essence, into the world 
of everlasting light. 

Metempsychosis was also taught by Origen, who 
found in this doctrine a convenient master-key to the 
hidden meaning of many strange events and difficult 
passages of Scripture. Thus he explains the prenatal 
struggle of Esau and Jacob in the womb of Eebekah as 
the revival and continuation of a pre-existent enmity 
between them. The Lord likewise ordained Jeremiah 
to be a prophet unto the nations, while he was yet un- 
born, because, as is expressly stated, he had known 
and tried him in a previous state of being. Predestina- 
tion, in Origen's opinion, could be brought into har- 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 113 

mony with divine justice only on the same principle. 
God's discrimination between persons before their 
birth, foreordaining the one to everlasting life and the 
other to everlasting death, he held to be an outrageous 
wrong and an act of unpardonable favouritism, unless 
justified by their known character and antecedent con- 
duct and their good or evil propensities as manifested 
in a former existence. To this most genial and thought- 
ful theologian of the Eastern church the rigorous 
dogma of the divine decrees, as implied in Paul's meta- 
phor of the potter and the clay, was tyrannous and 
atrocious, and he took refuge from it in the intricate 
mazes of Buddhistic psychology and ethics. 

"This view of predestination would relieve it, in a 
certain degree, of its arbitrary and unjust character 
and establish a causal connection between the past 
conduct of the person, rewarded or punished, and his 
future condition. The divine decree would resolve itself 
into fate, and a man's fate, says an Indian sage, is the 
resultant of his deeds committed in a former body. 

Origen held, too, that the story of the garden of 
Eden is an account of the life of our first parents in 
a previous state of existence, in which they fell into sin 
through disobedience and were condemned to dwell in 
human bodies. The passage in which God is said 
to have made " coats of skins '^ for Adam and Eve 
^'and clothed them," means that he vestured them 
with mortal flesh as a punishment for their transgres- 
sion. According to this theory, which is as radically 
pessimistic as any tenet of Buddhism, man became in- 
carnated and, as it were, incarcerated in his present 
physical form in consequence of a curse, and his whole 
life on earth is that of a convict in a penal colony, and 



114 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

the chief end of his endeavours and aspirations should 
be to obtain pardon and redemption by winning the 
favour of the Almighty King who placed him in this 
durance vile. 

Pythagoras claimed to have a distinct recollection 
of his pre-existent actions and experiences. Socrates 
maintained that all acquisition of knowledge or learn- 
ing is nothing but remembering — ^ fidOrja-is 6vk aAAo rt ij 
avdfxvrja-LS. Plato would condemn all cowardly and effemi- 
nate men, such as dandies and dudes, to be re-born as 
women; frivolous and flighty and feather-brained per- 
sons, to become birds; those who neglect the study 
of philosophy and seek only sensual indulgence, to be 
transformed into beasts; and the dull and foolish, to 
descend to the lower level of fishes and mollusks. He 
states, however, that Orpheus reappeared as a swan, 
and Thamyris as a nightingale at their own request 
a thousand years after their death. Aristotle held that 
the souls of poets are fond of taking bodily form again 
as cygnets; and Horace celebrates in an ode (ii, 20) 
his own apokyknosis or swan re-incarnation, and re- 
joices in the prospect of putting on feathers and soar- 
ing through the argent fields of air on the twofold 
pinions of bird and bard. 

Jesus and his disciples seem to have assumed, at least 
on one occasion, that a person might suffer afflictions in 
this body as a punishment for sins committed by him 
before his birth or in a former state of conscious and 
responsible existence. Thus, we are told that as they 
passed by and saw a man that was blind from his birth, 
" his disciples asked him, saying. Master, who did sin, 
this man or his parents, that he was born blind? " (John 
ix, 2). In his reply Jesus admits implicitly that both 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 115 

of these hypotheses are legitimate and adequate to ac- 
count for the given phenomenon^ and only denies their 
applicability to this particular case of physical infirmity. 
In the same connection, Jesus asserts concerning him- 
self that he existed before Abraham was. The state- 
ment in this passage and in others of a similar char- 
acter, which have been usually interpreted as referring 
to his eternal Godhead, could be far more easily and 
rationally explained as expressions of his belief in the 
pre-existence of the soul. 

St. Augustine maintained that men might be 
changed into beasts by sorcery, and even suggested, 
not sarcastically, but seriously, that the Golden Ass of 
Apuleius might be autobiographical, the author de- 
scribing his adventures in that state, whereinto, by the 
evil arts of an enchantress, he had been actually " trans- 
lated," like Bottom in the play. " In certain districts 
of Italy," he adds, " such occurrences are quite fre- 
quent. The women, who tend the herds, prepare with 
magic rites a kind of cheese, which they give to travel- 
lers to eat and thus change them into beasts of burden, 
in which shape they are made to bear heavy loads and 
perform other onerous tasks." 

According to one tradition, Apuleius wished to 
become a creature with wings, but the malicious witches 
Meroe and Panthia, who seem to have been fond of 
playing practical jokes at others^ expense, rubbed him 
with an ointment which changed him into an ass, doubt- 
less thinking that this would be the easiest and most 
natural metamorphosis of a man who could make such 
a request. Lucian, from whom Apuleius derived most 
of the material for his famous romance, imagines him- 
self in one of his satirical dialogues undergoing a like 



116 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

transformation through the conjurations of a Thes- 
salian sorceress; and Boethius, in his Consolation of 
Philosophy, describes similar metamorphoses: " One 
man," he says, " takes the form of a hoar, another that 
of a Marmarian lion, others become howling wolves 
and fierce tigers." 

Appuleius himself was a Platonist with a strong 
tendency to mysticism, and had the reputation of being 
a powerful magician. He was once brought to trial on 
the charge of having exercised this occult and uncanny 
faculty in what the Scotch would call an exceedingly 
canny way, by " enchanting " a rich widow and induc- 
ing her to marry him, to the great detriment and in- 
tense disgust of the heirs presumptive, who instituted 
a suit for damages. The court decided that, however 
irresistible may have been the influence he exerted in 
winning the affections of the lady, there was no ground 
for supposing that he had resorted to wizardry or any 
forbidden form of fascination. Eomantic sentiment, 
in the opinion of the learned judge, sufficed to account 
for the attachment without the intervention of necro- 
mantic arts. 

Perhaps the charm might have been explained, as 
Goethe, in a letter to Wieland, was fain to account for 
the ascendency gained over him by Frau von Stein, 
on the theory of metempsychosis: "Yes," he exclaims, 
" we were formerly man and wife." If this be so, one 
may naturally wonder what fatal act it was of his in 
that previous life that prevented the renewal of this 
pre-existent union and condemned him here to the 
conjugal care and companionship of Christine Yulpius. 

A case quite similar to that recorded of Apuleius 
occurred in December, 1894, at Munich, Bavaria, 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. I17 

where a Polish adventurer and itinerant practitioner 
of hypnotism and magnetism was accused, as the in- 
dictment runs, of having " inspired a lady with irresisti- 
ble love through post-hypnotic suggestion in hypnotic 
sleep, and thus enabled himself to enter into the most 
intimate relations with her, and then by the same 
means deprived her of all recollection of what had taken 
place, thus causing her to deny that she had ever 
been hypnotized by him." The lady was Baroness von 
Zedlitz, a wealthy spinster of thirty-eight, whose prop- 
erty the defendant, Czeslav Czynski, who had a wife 
still living, attempted to get into his possession by a 
sham marriage, at which a certain Stanislaus Wartalski 
officiated as priest under the name of Simon Werthe- 
mann, D. D., signing and sealing the marriage certifi- 
cate and carrying the feint and fraud so far as to toast 
the newly wedded couple as " duke " and " duchess " 
at the wedding dinner, which immediately followed 
the ceremony. The trial lasted several days and ended 
in the condemnation of Czynski to three years^ im- 
prisonment and five years' infamy, not, however, on 
the main accusation, of which the jury acquitted him, 
but on the collateral charges of instigation to an offence 
against public order by the assumption of a public office 
and the use of a forged public document. 

It is interesting and instructive to note how ex- 
tensively the idea of metempsychosis permeates and 
impregnates popular tales and superstitions. Mytholo- 
gy and folklore are full of stories of such transforma- 
tions and transmigrations, the human soul entering 
into a flower, a shrub, a tree, a butterfly, a bird, a beast, 
or a reptile. In the Song of Eoncesvalles a blackthorn 
is said to spring from the body of each painim who 



^J 



118 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

fell in battle, and a white flower of heavenly perfume 
from the head of every Christian warrior slain. The 
belief that the souls of the dead inhabit various plants, 
especially the rose, the lily, the linden, and the elder, 
is as old and widely diffused as the Aryan race. 

Zoolatry or animal worship stands in intimate rela- 
tion to metempsychosis. The primitive man was puz- 
zled by the mysterious origin and nature of the lower 
animals and by the equally mysterious phenomenon 
of death and by the thoughts to which this event gave 
rise touching the departure and destiny of the soul. 
These two great mysteries were made to explain each 
other, the spirit of the man passing into the body of 
the animal, whose chief qualities he shared and to 
which he would, therefore, be drawn by the strongest 
ties of affinity. Beasts of prey, which feed on human 
flesh, were especial objects of worship, because they were 
supposed to be habitations of the spirits of the persons 
whom they had devoured, and it was deemed desirable 
to propitiate and appease these angry ghosts. 

The Dakota Indian eats the liver of the dog in 
order to acquire the fleetness, courage, and hunting 
sagacity of this animal. Cannibalism, wherever it exists 
as an established custom or tribal institution, and not 
merely as a temporary refuge from stress of famine, 
originated in the conception of the possibility of trans- 
ferring the spiritual attributes of animals and persons 
to those who consume their bodies and thus make them 
a part of themselves. The soul is not squeamish and 
migrates readily from one organism to another through 
the stomach. 

A vague feeling of awe and mental awkwardness is 
awakened by the thought of a vagrant disembodied 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 119 

spirit; and the crude and crass imagination of the 
savage, not knowing what else to do with it, puts it 
into that other enigmatical incarnation of life, the 
beast. This is the lowest and grossest form of metem- 
psychosis or metasomatosis. The beast, in which the 
human soul is thus re-embodied, becomes thereby an 
object of peculiar fear and reverence, and is supposed 
to be endowed with a certain mystical and supernatural 
power of doing good or evil, aside from the infliction 
of physical harm. The transmigration, in such cases, 
was not regarded as a punishment or degradation, but 
rather as a promotion to a higher plane of existence, 
a sort of apotheosis and deification. The tendency of 
tl^e primitive man was to look upon the wild beasts of 
the chase, not as inferior, but as superior beings, whose 
force and faculty he viewed with envy, and to which 
he paid a ceremonial homage even in the act of killing 
them. The gods of rude peoples are, for the most part, 
zoomorphic, revealing themselves in brute forms. The 
natives of Africa adore the elephant, the hyena, and 
the crocodile, but have no representatives of the an- 
thropoid race, such as apes and gorillas, in their pan- 
theon; and the [N'orth American aborigines render 
divine honours to the owl, the beaver, the eagle, the 
bear, and the rattlesnake, but in no instance are their 
deities anthropomorphic. Survivals of this belief are 
found in the religions of the most highly civilized peo- 
ples. Even in Christianity the third person of the 
Trinity is S3^mbolized as a dove. When a European ap- 
peared for the first time with an ass among the Quaquas, 
they at once made a god of the long-eared and loud- 
braying brute, watching every movement as ominous, 
and interpreting every harsh hee-haw as the voice of 



120 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

an oracle. The ass was a greater mystery to them than 
the white man, and they obeyed the nniversal law which 
governs the expression of religions feeling by prostrat- 
ing themselves before it. The first impulse of the 
primitive man is to regard any strange creature as 
the embodiment of an evil spirit, a demonic incarnation, 
that may do him harm if not properly propitiated. The 
same feeling, directed toward inanimate objects, gives 
rise to hylozoism as an ontological theory and to fetich- 
ism as a religious cult. 

With the assignment of the beast to its proper 
place in the order of evolution and the recognition of 
it as a creature lower than man in the scale of being, 
but having a genetic connection with him, the doctrine 
of the transmigration of souls acquired a deeper pur- 
pose and significance, less as a means of punishment 
arbitrarily applied than as a process of spiritual 
growth and progressive transformation. According to 
this more philosophical modification of the original 
theory, every living creature in the vast and compli- 
cated system of Nature is the embodiment of certain 
passions and affections suited to its degTce of develop- 
ment, and every individual passes at death into the 
bodily organism of the animal which he has striven 
most assiduously and persistently to imitate while 
he was still humanly incarnated. Swedenborg states 
that one day, after having eaten more heartily than 
usual, he perceived a sort of vapour issuing from the 
pores of his skin and filling the room, imtil at length 
it began to descend and turned into hideous reptiles 
as soon as it touched the floor. The apparition of 
snakes would lead one naturally to infer that the Swed- 
ish seer had partaken too freely of that sweetly delusive 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 121 

and exceedingly heady beverage known as Swedish 
punch. But whatever may have been the immediate 
cause of this startUng vision, he regarded it as prophetic 
of what a man must necessarily come to by indulging 
low animal appetites and thus attaining through the 
rigorous and immutable law of cause and effect the 
goal of his conscious or unconscious aspirations. 

Metempsychosis is only applied metaphor, or meta- 
phor literally interpreted and practically insisted upon, 
as when we speak of a gluttonous, rapacious, tricky, 
cruel, or generally offensive person as a hog, a vulture, 
a fox, a tiger, or a skunk. Death merely releases the 
soul from corporeal restraints and enables it to seek 
a habitation better suited to the gratification of its 
cherished desires, in obedience to the law of spiritual 
affinity and attraction. Thus Nature is constantly en- 
deavouring to rectify incongruities and to produce per- 
fect harmony in all her works. The soul is everywhere 
the plastic and creative principle, which moulds the 
physical elements to its own ideal, as the poet Spenser 
says: 

For of the soul the body form doth take, 
For soul is form and doth the body make. 

Plato tells us that the pure soul, when it is set free 
from the body, is drawn to what is pure, and the base 
soul to what is base, like seeking like. Thus each in- 
dividual predetermines in the formation of his char- 
acter his fate and future associations, working out his 
own salvation in a profounder and more philosophical 
sense than is commonly attached to these words in mod- 
ern pulpit phraseology. 

In the Institutes of Manu and Yajnavalkya, fate 
(daivam) and human effort (purusJilcdra) are harmo* 



122 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

nized by resolving the former into the latter on the theo- 
ry of the pre-existence of the soul, fate being only the 
natural sequence of past actions or of " deeds done in 
a former body." " The accomplishment of an act/' 
says the Indian lawgiver, " depends upon fate and 
human exertion; but what is here called fate is mani- 
festly the resultant of acts performed in a previous 
stage of existence. Some expect success from fate or 
from the inherent nature of the thing, from time or 
from human agency; others, of superior perception, 
seek it in the union of all. these factors. For as with a 
single wheel there can be no progress of a chariot, so 
fate without human effort can not be carried into ef- 
fect.'' (Yajnavalkyadharma-Sastra, i, 348-350.) 

According to this theory, the element of fore-ordi- 
nation, so far as it enters into a man's character and 
controls his conduct, does not result from the arbitrary 
decree of a higher power, but is the natural and neces- 
sary outcome of a universal law, and springs directly 
from the operations of his own will, which is the 
source of all the forces that predetermine his career 
and shape his destiny. Modern science also tends more 
and more to confirm this view. To what fearful ex- 
tent man is the helpless creature and melancholy 
victim of prenatal influences and external circum- 
stances, and how largely his nature is subdued to his 
moral and physical environment is evident from the 
startling light which statistics has thrown upon the 
operation of his so-called free will and power of self- 
determination in relation to suicides, murders, acci- 
dental deaths, marriages, and other social phenomena. 
Whether or not the world be the play and jugglery of 
the Absolute, and 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 123 

, . .the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherit. 

be in reality only the " unsubstantial pageant/' to which 
Prospero compares it^, and man the helpless toy of 
destiny, it is certain that our criminal codes show a 
constantly increasing tendency to admit the extenuat- 
ing force of circumstances in judging of human actions, 
and our schemes of philanthropy and reform, discard- 
ing in a great measure the old machinery of moral 
appeal and hortatory homily, are directed more and more 
to the counteraction of hereditary propensities and the 
improvement of the external conditions of human life 
as the most efficient means of eradicating vice, dimin- 
ishing crime, and elevating mankind. 

Plato also maintains, or at least suggests, that the 
puzzling problem of the origin of a priori notions, in- 
nate ideas, intuitions, axioms, necessary postulates, and 
universal affirmations of the reason, may be most easily 
and satisfactorily solved by regarding them as survivals 
of knowledge acquired in a previous state of existence, 
the winnowed and garnered fruits of prenatal experi- 
ence. These inherent truths and intuitional percep- 
tions thus constitute the sum of man's permanent and 
imprescriptible intellectual acquisitions prior to the 
present period of his incarnation, and represent, so to 
speak, the consolidated spiritual capital, which survives 
the dissolution of the body and with which he begins 
another and higher stage of embodiment. " The 
mind," says Spinoza, " can not be absolutely destroyed 
with the body, but somewhat of it remains which is 
eternal. . . . There are rare minds, of which the prin- 
cipal part is eternal; so that they have scarce any- 
thing to fear from death." 
9 



124 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

Lessing held that the possession of five senses is 
only peculiar to our present temporary state of being,- and 
that in the past we may have had less and in the future 
may become endowed with more than five senses. Even 
now we know of persons who go in and out among us, 
eating, drinking, merry-making, and marrying like ordi- 
nary mortals, yet who claim to have won for themselves 
the faculty of conceiving and perceiving four dimen- 
sions. Is this a prophecy of what is in store for us all, 
the isolated and individual foreshadowings of a future 
four-dimensioned existence for the race? The old 
mystic Henry More recognised the existence of a fourth 
dimension which he called essential spissitude (spis- 
situdo essentice), and regarded it as an attribute of 
spirits: Uhicunque vel plures vel plus essentice in aliquo 
ubi continetur, quam quod amplitudinem Jiujus adce- 
quat, ubi agnoscitur quarta Jicec dimensio quam appello 
spissitudinem essentialem. (Enchiridion Metaphysicum, 
pars i, cap. 28, § 7.) 

Lessing's theory as set forth in his dissertation on the 
possibility of man's having more than five senses (Dass 
mehr als fiinf Sinne fiir den Menschen sein konnen) 
is based upon the doctrine of evolution or the gradual 
development of man out of a lower and less perfect 
organism. The substance of his a priori and meta- 
physical argument is as follows: The soul is endowed 
with infinite powers of apprehension and conception, 
which it attains, not at once, but in an infinite succes- 
sion of time. Nature never goes by leaps, but by steps, 
which are often so small and slow as to be almost im- 
perceptible; and since Nature contains many substances 
and forces incognizable by any of the senses, which 
now serve the soul as physical organs for the acquisition 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 125 

of knowledge, it is necessary to assume that there 
will be future stages of existence in which the soul will 
have senses capable of perceiving all the substances and 
forces of Nature. With our present number of senses 
we are unable to perceive a great variety of objects 
which are either too small for us or too large, too near, 
too far, or too subtile, so that we are constantly hemmed 
in and hindered in our pursuit of knowledge by bodily 
limitations and imperfections, and thus only partially 
comprehend the real relations and qualities of things. 
But it would be irrational to suppose that the soul is 
destined to grope forever in fruitless search after that 
which, through the want of proper or sufficient organs, 
it is incompetent to grasp. " This system of mine," 
adds Lessing, "is certainly the oldest of all philosophical 
systems; since it is, in fact, no other than the system 
of metempsychosis, or the doctrine of the pre-existence 
and transmigration of the soul, which was not only a 
subject of speculation with Pythagoras and Plato, but 
also engaged the attention of Egyptians, Chaldeans, and 
Persians, and, indeed, of all the sages of the East. This 
circumstance ought to produce a prepossession in its fa- 
vour; for, in matters of pure speculation, the first and 
oldest opinion is always the most probable, because it was 
at once suggested by common sense." It is also interest- 
ing to note that this theory of the possible genesis of ad- 
ditional senses through the striving of the soul after 
knowledge corresponds, in a remarkable manner, to one 
of the chief factors in the modern doctrine of evolution, 
as expounded and emphasized by the Neolamarckian 
school of scientists, namely, the originary influence of 
mental effort in producing new bodily organs and facul- 
ties and effecting important modification of species. 



126 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

Lessing would have regarded the recent discovery of 
the so-called X-rays by Prof. Eontgen as an excellent 
illustration and quasi-confirmation of his views, for here 
we. have to do with vibrations or undulations in ether 
akin to light, and yet wholly imperceptible to the human 
eye. Owing to the imperfection of our senses the ex- 
istence of these occult forces in Nature, of whose mys- 
terious and manifold workings we are just beginning 
to form a vague and extremely limited conception, has 
hitherto escaped the keenest scientific observation. Even 
now we perceive the marvellous and almost magical 
effects, but the cause is hidden from our sight. 

In pantheism there is, strictly speaking, no place 
for independent finite beings, since the Infinite is every- 
thing. Even the postulated all-god of this system of 
religion is not a personality outside of the universe, 
but a power immanent in the life of every part of it 
and subject to its immutable laws. So powerful and 
pervasive is this tendency in Eastern thought, that not 
even the hard, narrow, and anthropopathic monotheism 
of the Arabian prophet has been able to resist its dis- 
integrating and transforming influence. In India, the 
Vedanta, with its indigenous and exuberant growth of 
ages of exegetical and metaphysical speculation, has 
completely overrun and metamorphosed the gaunt body 
of alcoranic divinity; and in Persia a highly mystical 
and poetical sofism has grown up in the very bosom 
of Mohammedanism. 

In the Orient, the two chief representatives of 
pantheism and atheism, as organized cults saeerdotally 
and ceremonially equipped and clothed, as it were, in 
full canonicals, are Brahmanism and Buddhism. 

There is another class of Indian atheists who are 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. • 12Y 

called Sunyavddinah (i. e., affirmers of emptiness or 
nonexistence) and whose doctrines are most distinct- 
ly embodied in a didactic poem entitled Siinisar (i. e., 
Sunyasara, the essence of emptiness). Unlike the 
Buddhists, instead of making nothing of this world 
they make everything of it. They despise all religious 
rites and are thoroughly materialistic and sensualistic 
in their ideas. Their generosity springs from selfish- 
ness and their altruism is a refined and far-sighted ego- 
tism. Like the Sadducean author of Ecclesiastes 
(iii, 19-22; iv, 2-6), they believe only in the present 
life, and in getting the greatest possible sum of pleas- 
ure out of it before they " all turn to dust again." 
" Take and enjoy the good things of the world, and give 
also to others their share, since thereby your own en- 
joyment is increased. . . . Men die and pass away like 
leaves on the trees; new ones shoot forth as the old 
decay. Fix not your heart upon a withered leaf, but 
seek the shade of the green foliage. The horse that 
cost a thousand rupees, when dead is worthless, but 
the live nag bears you on your way. Trust not in the 
dead, but in the living; for he that is dead will never 
he alive again. This is a truth which all men know: 
of all those that have died not one has come back again 
or brought tidings of the rest. . . . The living care 
not for heaven or hell, and when the body is turned to 
dust what distinction is there between an ass and an 
ascetic? " 

Curiously enough, the highest good or supreme 
bliss, which is the aim and aspiration of the mighty 
opposites, Brahmanism and Buddhism, is the same, 
namely, final and eternal exemption from the pain- 
ful process of transmigration through the extinction 



128 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

of personal existence: the Brahman looking forward 
with cheerful hope to absorption in the universal spirit, 
and the B-uddhist striving by suppressing evil passions 
and by seeking the " path of the law ^' or of duty 
(dhammapadam) to render himself worthy of attain- 
ing individual annihilation and of passing into the sin- 
less and endless tranquility of Nirvana. 

Egotism is the essence of individuality, and in 
egotism every form of evil has its root. Neither aus- 
terities, nor ritual observances, nor almsgiving, nor 
good works of any kind have power to purge human 
nature of this universal taint. The only radical cure 
of self-love and self-assertion, the pride and naughti- 
ness of the heart, is the utter extinction of individual 
existence, since these qualities are inherent in self- 
hood. The Apostle Paul says, " Though I bestow all 
my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body 
to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me 
nothing." But the Sikh prophet Nanak declares, 
" Though I give my body as an offering to the fire, or 
cause it to be sawn asunder, or let it perish in the 
Himalaya, yet will the malady still cling to my mind; 
and though I bestow in charity castles of gold and ex- 
cellent horses and elephants and land and much cattle, 
yet will egotism abide within me." That " respect unto 
the recompense of the reward," which Paul praises 
in the conduct of Moses as one of the fruits of faith, 
is denounced by Nanak as a product of egotism. " Spot- 
less," he says, " is the religion of that man who worketh 
and looketh not to the future reward." 

According to this doctrine, the man who restrains 
his passions and rejects the pleasures of sense, leading 
a holy, virtuous, and beneficent life, with no hope or 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 12i> 

desire of personal remuneration either in this world 
or in the world to come, acts from higher and purer 
motives, and gives freer scope to the development of 
a morality untainted by selfishness, than he who con- 
soles himself with the belief that his self-denial here 
will be compensated for by a thousandfold greater posi- 
tive happiness hereafter, the light affliction, which is 
but for a moment, working for him a far more exceed- 
ing and eternal weight of glory. Here surely is more 
room for a system of moral duties than in a religion 
that offers to its votaries the allurements of a Christian 
heaven or a Mohammedan paradise as a reward for 
right conduct. The Buddhist believes that the effects 
of his good deeds are not dissipated by his death, but 
that, although he may cease to exist as a personal entity, 
his virtues live after him, entering into and increasing 
the moral inheritance of the race, perfecting, magnify- 
ing, and glorifying the great being — le Grand Eire — 
humanity, easing the burdens of life for others, and 
mitigating the common misery of the sentient world 
long after his own individual consciousness has found 
the bhssful end of all its strivings and wanderings in 
the eternal rest and peace of Nirvana. " Do unto 
others as ye would that others should do unto you" 
is the golden rule; but far purer and more precious 
than gold is the injunction to do good without any 
reference to self, and to cultivate a morality that does 
not reflect the faintest tint, nor involve the slightest 
implication of self-love. 

The alleged defect in the pantheistic scheme of 
salvation is the difficulty of harmonizing the decrees 
of fate, which are written on every man's forehead, with 
the constant appeals which are made to him as a free 



130 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

agent, accountable for his deeds. But what system of 
theology has ever succeeded in reconciling the sharp 
antitheses of fore-ordination and predetermination with 
personal responsibility? Surely not Milton's Stygian 
group of metaphysicians, who 

. . . reasoned high 
Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, 
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, 
And found no end, in wandering mazes lost ; 

nor the Greek poets and philosophers, with their notions 
of the influence of fiolpa upon the destinies of gods 
and men; nor Paul with his theory of "the election of 
grace " ; nor Augustine and Calvin with their dogma 
of the arbitrary predestination of men to eternal hap- 
piness or endless woe, a dogma which even the stem 
Genevan himself admitted to be a dodrina liorrihilis. 
Supralapsarian and Infralapsarian, Pelagian and Semi- 
Pelagian, the objective necessity of Thomas Aquinas, 
and the subjective necessity of Duns Scotus, after all 
their hair-splitting and logic-chopping, come no nearer 
to a satisfactory solution of the puzzling problem, and 
appear even more inconsistent and inconsequent in 
their reasonings about it than the Hindu pantheist, 
who regards all finite beings as mere modes and mani- 
festations of the Supreme Being, just as waves are but 
fleeting forms of water, rising out of and remerging 
into the sea. Indeed, as we have already seen, the pan- 
theistic identification of fate with the exercise of free 
will in a former state of existence comes nearer to a 
reconciliation of these conflicting forces than any other 
system of metaphysics or scheme of theodicy. 

Again, from an ethical point of view, the inequalities 
of human conditions, the seemingly capricious dis- 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 131 

tribution of good and evil, the pleasures enjoyed and 
the pains endured by men independently of any obvious 
relation to their respective characters or acknowledged 
deserts, can be best explained on this hypothesis, which, 
unlike the current orthodox theodicy, is at least com- 
petent to 

. . . assert eternal Providence, 
And justify the ways of God to men, 

without diabolizing the Divine Being and utterly sub- 
verting our common conceptions of justice. It is surely 
more moral, as well as more intelligible, to suppose 
that the ills we suffer in this world are due to our own 
individual antecedent sins and shortcomings than that 
they are attributable to the transgressions of one far- 
off, reputed progenitor and federal head, for whose 
conduct no subtilty of casuistry can make us feel in 
the slightest degree responsible, or that our eternal 
destiny is determined by the arbitrary decree of a 
being, 

Wha, as it pleases best hissel', 
Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell, 
A' for his glory. 

The proofs of personal immortality derived from the 
emotions or from the principle of compensation and 
retribution may be urged with equal cogency in sup- 
port of transmigration. For this theory puts it into 
the power of every human being, and indeed of every 
living creature, to determine what form and feature 
the future life shall assume. Man is the maker of his 
own destiny in more than the proverbial sense of the 
phrase, elevating or degrading himself in the scale of 
sentient existence by his own acts. Each new incarna- 



132 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

tion that awaits him, like the maiden of heavenly 
beauty or hideous aspect, who meets the soul of the 
Parsi at the Chinvad bridge, is the personification of 
his own thoughts, words, and deeds. He grows into 
the complete embodiment of the propensities which 
he fosters, and fondly cherished tendencies take root 
in him as instincts, until by imperceptible gradations 
his 

. . . nature is subdued 
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. 

The recent progress of the physical sciences has 
also lent additional interest and importance, not to 
say probability, to the ancient doctrine. Metempsy- 
chosis would seem to be the spiritual counterpart 
of metamorphosis, the transmigration of souls being 
logically and analogically suggested as a corollary to 
the transmutation of species. The one does not neces- 
sarily involve the other, but both lie in the same line 
of thought. There is, furthermore, no reason why 
the theory of the conservation and persistence of force 
should not be applicable to mental or psychical, as well 
as to mechanical or physical forces. No impulse ever 
ceases, no motion is ever lost, no atom can be disturbed 
without disturbing every atom in the universe. If a 
sparrow fall to the ground, the momentum of its falling 
body is imparted to and affects every particle of the 
globe. But what becomes of the vital force which 
animated the bird and impelled it through the air? 

It is, furthermore, an axiom of science that force 
is an essential attribute of matter. " Both," we are 
told, " are mutable, both indestructible, and both, so 
far as we know, quite incapable of existing alone." 
Mental operations are dependent upon material pro- 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 133 

cesses, which modern physiologists have succeeded, to 
some extent at least, in tracing. Of the one apart from 
the other we have no experience, and therefore no 
knowledge. Force isolated from matter and matter 
devoid of force are alike inconceivable. The material- 
ist, then, should not, and in fact does not, deny the 
existence, but, on the contrary, emphatically asserts' 
the eternity of spiritual force: he denies only the pos- 
sibility of its existence, except as inhering in some 
material form, some solid, liquid, gaseous, visible or 
invisible, palpable or impalpable, ponderable or im- 
ponderable body. There would seem, therefore, to be 
little or no difference between the mere declaration of 
the immortality of the soul and the afhrmation of the 
indestructibility of psychic force. The only question 
in' dispute is as to the conditions under which this 
sentient principle, this thinking and conscious energy, 
survives and continues to operate. Does spirit remain 
forever a distinct personal entity, disembodied or re- 
embodied, or is it, too, convertible into other forces, 
manifesting itself in manifold and interchangeable 
forms, like light, heat, magnetism, electricity, motion, 
and gravity? Science clearly indicates the latter; faith 
and the cravings of human affections cling to the 
former. 

But whatever may be the nature and essence of the 
scintilla animce divince, and whatever transformations it 
may undergo, we have never known it and can not con- 
ceive of it, except in connection with some more or less 
highly organized collocation of material atoms. This 
is true of both " celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial." 
The apostle can not describe them nor the imagination 
picture them otherwise than as substance, differing 



134 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

only in degrees of refinement and subtilty, as the sun 
differs from the moon or " star differs from star in 
glory." We can not, even in thought, disassociate force 
from something forcible, nor imagine wisdom or virtue 
as existing apart from the wise or the virtuous. Not 
only in actuality, but also in ideation, the abstract pre- 
sents itself to us always and everywhere as the con- 
crete. 

From a purely speculative standpoint, therefore, the 
assumption that soul force is essentially distinct from 
all other forces, never being converted into any of them, 
but always preserving its individuality as a thinking 
entity, and the scientific axiom that all force is inde- 
structible and inseparable from matter, would, when 
taken together and logically formulated, lead inevitably 
to the doctrine of metempsychosis. The beast soul has 
been characterized by Thomas Aquinas as substantia 
incompleta ratione suhsistentice et naturce, i. e., an entity 
which exists only as aided and supplemented by matter; 
but it is a question whether this dependence upon mat- 
ter does not hold true of all souls. 

We have no knowledge or experience of any force 
as an entity, but only as a phenomenon. We recognise 
it solely in some physical manifestation. What we call 
metaphorically the flame of life, the vital spark, may 
be the result of a combustion of gases, like any other 
flame, and when this chemical action ceases the flame 
goes out. The flame has, in fact, no real, but only a 
phenomenal existence; it is the visible effect of a pro- 
cess. Death is brought about by the operation of the 
same forces that produce and sustain life. There is 
nothing that leaves a person's body at death that has 
not been leaving it ever since his birth; only the loss, 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 135 

SO to speak, is greater than the supply. The change 
is one which has always been going on, but in different 
degrees and relations. The debit begins to exceed the 
credit in the ledger of life; the balance keeps on fatally 
accumulating on the wrong page; the organism be- 
comes painfully conscious of a deficit, until all further 
transactions are impossible, vital processes cease, and 
bankruptcy is inevitable. 

It is not our present purpose to discuss the theory 
of the transmigration of souls as a tenet of philosophy, 
but merely to call attention to its beneficent influence 
as a code of morals and especially to its effect upon 
the relation of man to the lower animals and his kind 
and considerate treatment of them. The recognition 
of an original affinity between man and beast, how- 
ever remote the kinship may be, or whether it be based 
upon the ancient dogma of metempsychosis or the mod- 
ern doctrine of evolution, necessarily creates a current 
of sj'mpathy extending even to the most insignificant 
members of the great and widely diversified family of 
sentient beings, and rendering it impossible willfully 
to neglect or maltreat the "poor relations," to whom 
we are united by the warm and living ties of blood. 

In a few bold lines already quoted and written half a 
century ago Emerson anticipates the most radical deduc- 
tions from Darwinism in his poetic conception of how, 

. . . striving to be man, the worm 
Mounts through all the spires of form. 

A clear perception and abiding consciousness of this 
truth would cause even the most heedless wajrfarer 
to take heed to his feet and step aside, rather than tread 
upon the humble embodiment of such lofty aspirations. 



136 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

It would be unreasonable to suppose that no cruelty 
to animals occurs in Oriental countries, where metemp- 
sychosis is the prevailing speculative opinion. The 
observations of Ernst Hackel (Indische Eeisebriefe), W. 
Heine (Eine Weltreise), Graul (Eeise nach Ostindien), 
and J. Lockwood Kipling (Man and Beast in India) suf- 
fice to dissipate any illusion of this kind. Unfortunate- 
ly the conduct of men is not always consistent with the 
religious precepts and philosophical principles by which 
they profess to be governed, and the strictest injunc- 
tions to kindness and compassion are often of little 
avail in resisting the primitive instincts and impulses 
of brutality inherent in human nature. • The absolute 
prohibition of the destruction of animals, prescribed 
by Buddhism and Jainaism, is especially absurd in India, 
where savage beasts, and venomous reptiles abound 
and put the inhabitants in daily peril of their lives. Far 
more sensible in theory, as well as more salutary in 
practice, is the discrimination of the Parsi between 
useful animals, creations of the beneficent spirit, which 
are to be carefully cherished, and noxious animals, cre- 
ations of the hurtful spirit, which are to be conscien- 
tiously exterminated. The religious duty of preserva- 
tion or destruction is in each case equally imperative. 

But, notwithstanding its marked deficiencies and 
manifold disadvantages, the doctrine in question has 
undoubtedly produced in the East a tenderer regard for 
the rights of domestic and wild animals than is gen- 
erally prevalent in the West, where, until quite recently, 
only such beasts and birds as were the property of man 
were thought to be entitled to any human sympathy 
or legal protection whatever. Cruelty was prohibited 
and punished solely as an infringement of the rights 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 13Y 

of the owner, for which the imposition of a fine would 
fully compensate him, but no consideration was given 
to the sufferings of the animal itself, which was re- 
garded merely as an animated and automatic machine. 
It is also a significant circumstance that the earliest 
European advocates of animals^ rights based their argu- 
ments and appeals upon panpsychism, or the essential 
unity of all forms of sentient existence, and upon the 
assumption that beasts are, like men, emanations from 
the infinite source of being and parts of the general 
soul of the universe. This is true of the Ionic school, 
the oldest group of Greek philosophers, of whom An- 
aximander anticipated the latest inferences from the 
doctrine of evolution concerning the descent of man, 
of Pythagoras, Empedocles, Theophrastus, the Stoics, 
Plotinus and Porphyry, and the Neoplatonists and 
Neopythagoreans in general. In modern times the 
same theory has been held by Hamann, Herder, Schleier- 
macher, Krause, Schopenhauer, Eduard von Hartmann, 
Lotze, Wundt, Paulsen, the materialists Ludwig Feuer- 
bach, Moleschott, and Biichner, not to mention many 
less noted writers, and, so far as it affects the ethical 
relations of man to the lower animals, is elucidated 
and confirmed by the newest developments of biology 
and zoology, which began with the publication of Dar- 
win^s Origin of Species. With the disappearance of the 
crude hypothesis of special creations from the domain 
of natural history, the anthropocentric conception of 
the universe has ceased to be tenable and has been aban- 
doned by the majority of scholars in every field of 
investigation, including even the best thinkers in the 
province of theology. The influence of this change 
of view in enlarging the scope of ethical inquiry so as 



138 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

to bring not only the lower races of mankind, but also 
the lower animals within its range, is especially observ- 
able, and has been most fruitful of happy results by 
awakening feelings of compassion and a sense of jus- 
tice in individual minds and giving expression to them 
in municipal and national legislation. 

A striking manifestation of this newly awakened 
sympathy is the organization and legal recognition of 
societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. These 
benign and strictly secular institutions are of compara- 
tively recent origin, and furnish, by the sad necessity of 
their existence, a confession and confirmation of a 
radical deficiency in Christian teaching, which they en- 
deavour to supply. Such associations would be su- 
perfluous in Brahmanical or Buddhistic lands, where 
men are taught from their infancy to hold all life in- 
violably sacred, and kind and sympathetic treatment 
of the lower animals constitutes an essential element 
of religion and religious education. It is true that in 
every country and every community there are persons 
who are wholly unamenable to such instruction or to 
any sort of moral suasion, and on whom ethical teach- 
ing can be inculcated only by judicial punishment. In 
the conduct of life their sole criterion is the criminal 
code; whatever it prohibits and punishes they regard 
as wrong, and whatever it permits they assume to be 
right. The perfect man is, in their eyes, one who has 
never been guilty of a misdemeanour, for which he 
could be fined or sent to prison. Upon this class of 
individuals, which is much larger than it is generally 
supposed to be, penal legislation exerts an educational 
influence, serving as a permanent preventive of crime 
by elevating the average standard of public morality 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 139 

rather than as a temporary deterrent by appealing to 
the principle of fear. Thus lawgivers and courts of 
justice exercise correctional functions in a moral and 
didactic as well as in a purely punitive sense of the 
term; and it is especially in the extension of the sphere 
of criminal jurisprudence to the protection of animals 
against the capricious cruelty of man that its ethical 
value, as a means of moulding popular sentiment and 
moralizing public opinion, has been most perceptible. 

In India hospitals for diseased and decrepit beasts 
have existed from time immemorial, and still consti- 
tute a universally recognised object of public charity 
and private munificence. Thus we find established 
in Bombay a flourishing institution of this kind, known 
as Panjara Pol, founded and supported by wealthy Jaina 
merchants and other Hindu sects, especially the votaries 
of Yishnu. It is richly endowed and situated in a 
street outside of the fort and covers several acres of 
ground. Prof. Monier Williams, who visited it, says: 
^" The animals are well fed and well tended, though it 
certainly seemed to me that the great majority would 
be more mercifully provided for by the application 
of a loaded pistol to their heads." This remark is 
doubtless correct, and would apply with equal force and 
pertinency to many suffering and incurably diseased 
persons. Savage tribes are wont to give expression to 
their compassionate feelings in this summary and ef- 
fective manner. To the Greeks and other nations of 
antiquity it seemed as absurd to prolong the life of a 
decrepit man as it does to Prof. Williams to prolong 
the life of a decrepit beast. But a sense of the sacred- 
ness of human life prevents Englishmen of to-day from 
showing kindness to the aged and infirm by killing 
10 



140 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

them, and a still stronger feeling of the same kind pre- 
vents Jainas from treating old and sickly animals in 
the same way. The difference consists merely in a 
narrower or broader application of the Aliiilsd com- 
mandment: Thou shalt not kill. " A large proportion 
of space/' continues our informant, " was allotted to 
stalls for sick and infirm oxen, some with bandaged 
eyes, some with crippled legs, some wrapped up in 
blankets and lying on straw beds. One huge, bloated, 
broken-down old bull in the last stage of decrepitude 
and disease was a pitiable object to behold. Then I 
noticed in other parts of the building singular speci- 
mens of emaciated buffaloes, limping horses, mangy dogs, 
apoplectic pigs, paralytic donkeys, featherless vultures, 
melancholy monkeys, comatose tortoises, besides a 
strange medley of cats, rats, and mice, small birds, rep- 
tiles, and even insects, in every stage of suffering and 
disease. In one corner a crane, with a kind of wooden 
leg, appeared to have spirit enough left to strut in a 
stately manner among a number of dolorous-looking 
ducks and depressed fowls. The most spiteful animals 
seemed to be tamed by their sufferings and the care 
they received. All were being tended, nursed, phys- 
icked, and fed, as if it were a sacred duty to prolong 
the existence of every living creature to the utmost 
possible extent. It is even said that men are paid to 
sleep on dirty woollen beds in different parts of the 
building, that the loathsome vermin with which they 
are infested may be supplied with their nightly meal 
of human blood." This last statement is doubtless 
the invention of some itinerant wag hailing from the 
home of Douglas Jerrold or the land of Mark Twain, 
although it must be confessed that the Oriental has the 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 141 

courage of his opinions very strongly developed and 
seldom shrinks from the logical application of his prin- 
ciples, no matter to what extremities they may reduce 
him. The first of the five commandments, which con- 
stitute the moral code of the Jainas and correspond 
almost exactly to the pdnchasila of the Buddhists, in- 
culcates a tender regard for all forms of life. That 
this noble feeling should be carried to ridiculous excess 
and impose a number of absurd prescriptions, such as 
to strain water before drinking it, never to eat or drink 
anything in the dark, lest an insect might be inad- 
vertently swallowed, to sweep the ground with a soft 
brush before sitting down lest an insect might be 
crushed, not to walk in the wind without wearing a 
piece of muslin over the mouth lest an insect might be 
blown into it, not to leave a liquid uncovered lest an 
insect might be drowned — these and many other equally 
preposterous precautions may travesty but can not de- 
stroy the beauty and worth of the fundamental idea. 
One can imagine the depths of horror and despair to 
which a conscientious Jaina would be consigned by a 
microscopic examination of his daily food and drink. 

The feelings with which a visit to the Panjara Pol 
inspired the Oxford professor do not differ essentially 
from those which would be excited in any refijied and 
sensitive mind by a walk through the wards of an 
ordinary hospital. "W^e have already left far behind 
us the primitive barbarism, which would have laughed 
at our anxiety to promote the comfort and to preserve 
the lives of old and useless persons as foolish senti- 
mentalism. Perhaps, when we have fully outgrown 
our anthropocentric ideas and traditions, we may also 
discover in a hospital for old and worn-out animals 



142 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

something really commendable and not utterly and 
irredeemably comical. 

The Italian physiologist Prof. Mantegazza, in the 
record of his travels in India, describes a similar estab- 
lishment, and seems to have been greatly disgusted 
with what he witnessed. One could hardly expect that 
such tender regard for subhuman infirmities would ex- 
cite any other than loathsome feelings in the mind of 
the man who invented a new kind of rack, called the 
'' tormentor/' for the express purpose of inflicting upon 
animals the most excruciating pain of which he could 
possibly conceive. Day- after day and month after 
month he contemplated, as he confesses, ^' with much 
delight and extreme patience " (con molto amore et 
pazienza moltissima), the sufferings of dogs and other 
exceedingly sensitive creatures stretched upon his horrid 
engine and enduring prolonged agonies, which, if we 
may judge from the meagre scientific results in his 
publications, served no purpose whatever except the 
gratification of a morbid and insensate curiosity. 

On the 5th of March, 1890, there died in Bombay, 
at an advanced age, a Parsi woman, named Lady Sa- 
karbai, whose husband had appropriated five years before 
a considerable sum of money to found a hospital for ani- 
mals, which he called " Bai Sakarbai " in honour of his 
wife, and which was to remain a monument to her mem- 
ory. During the rest of her life the now deceased lady 
took a lively interest in this philozoie foundation and 
left it in a flourishing condition. 

Institutions of the kind just described are both 
charitable and educational. The compassion manifested 
in such eases not only alleviates the actual suffering of 
the beast, but it also exerts a wholesome reflex influ- 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 143 

ence upon man, ennobling and humanizing his charac- 
ter, cultivating his affections and sympathies for the 
lower animals, and teaching children especially not 
to indulge in thoughtless cruelty toward any sentient 
creature. 

"When King Thibo, of Siam, sold a white elephant to 
Mr. Barnum, he stipulated in the contract or bill of sale 
that " the rich man who has bought the elephant agrees 
to love and cherish it, to make its life pleasant, and to 
keep it safe from all pain or injury." Tender consid- 
eration of this sort is a sentiment quite foreign to 
Christian civilization, and would be sneered at by the 
European, who does not scruple to send his broken- 
down horses to the knacker to be cut up into dog's meat, 
or to sell them for a song to a low and brutal carter 
to be driven and beaten to death in their old age. 

Notwithstanding the ridicule which Prof. Williams 
heaps upon the Panjara Pol of Bombay, it has been 
deemed necessary to found a similar Animals' In- 
stitute in London, for the purpose of relieving the 
sufferings of sick or wounded animals by proper medi- 
cal or surgical treatment. How urgent was the need 
of such an institution is evident from the fact that 
soon after it was opened for the reception of patients, 
the hospital was found insufficient to accommodate 
all the horses, dogs, cats, and other animals for which 
admission was sought. It was also thought advisable 
to establish, as supplementary to the hospital, a sani- 
tarium in the suburbs of the city for convalescents 
and for cases requiring prolonged treatment, careful 
dietary, and rest. Although the animals of the poorer 
classes, as well as waifs and estrays, are treated gratuit- 
ousl}^, the number of paying patients promises to make 



144 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

the institution self-snpporting after the preliminary 
expenses have been covered. 

Very different from this retreat for unfortunate 
animals is the veterinary hospital recently established 
in New York under the charge of four surgeons, the 
chief of Avhom also drives out to visit his patients in 
their homes like an ordinary medical practitioner. The 
principal patrons of this institution are wealthy ladies, 
whose pampered pugs, high-bred cats, and other pets 
suffer from indigestion caused by too rich and abundant 
food. Horses are frequently operated upon, but the 
cost of treatment is so great that it does not pay unless 
the animal has a value of several hundred dollars. From 
a general philozoic point of view this establishment 
has no practical value whatever, since it affords no relief 
to the thousands of maimed and sick creatures who 
stand in most pressing need of it. 

In some of the other larger European cities we also 
find occasional asylums for stray and famished dogs and 
homes for houseless cats, such as the refuge founded 
by Ellen M. Gifford at Brighton, in England, for the 
succour and sustenance of needy animals. Miss Lindo^s 
hospital for consumptive and home for weary horses 
near London, and the Countess De la Torres's asylum 
for cats at Hammersmith. The pound, which exists 
in most towns, or the parish pinfold, is an establish- 
ment of a wholly different nature, inasmuch as its pur- 
pose is not to provide a refuge for beast, but to give 
protection to man, corresponding, in this respect, not 
so much to a hospital or almshouse as to what the bed- 
lam or the madhouse used to be before the discovery 
of more rational and scientific methods of treating the 
insane. 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 1 45 

" In Egypt," says Lecky, " there are hospitals for 
superannuated cats, and the most loathsome insects are 
regarded with tenderness; but human life is treated 
as if it were of no account, and human suffering scarcely 
elicits a care. The same contrast appears more or less 
in all Eastern nations." Also some of the men most 
conspicuous for their activity during the Eeign of Ter- 
ror in France were very fond of pet animals. Couthon 
was strongly attached to a spaniel; Fournier lavished 
his love on a squirrel; Panis kept two gold pheasants; 
Chaumette had an aviary; and the sanguinary Marat 
was devoted to doves. The psychological problem pre- 
sented in all these cases is to reconcile so much kindness 
to the lower animals with so great indifference or such 
excessive cruelty to human beings. It would be a mis- 
take to suppose that the terrorists of the French Eevo- 
lution did not love their fellow-men. On the contrary, 
so all-absorbing was their enthusiasm for humanity and 
so intense their affection for the race, that, as is often 
the case with philanthropists, they lost sight of the 
rights and were deaf to the woes of individuals. All 
other consideration were swallowed up in fanatical devo- 
tion to certain fixed ideas. We have an example of this 
perversion of feeling in readers of fiction, who waste 
their emotions in weeping over the trials and afilictions 
of imaginary personages and turn away with dry eyes 
and cold hearts from the misery of men and women 
in real life. The Oriental, whose extreme carefulness 
of beasts renders him careless of mankind, illustrates 
the same emotional limitations of human nature nar- 
rowed and intensified by religious superstition. This 
principle is exemplified on a smaller scale by the Ger- 
man lady who advertised in a Berlin paper for "well- 



14:6 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

mannered and well-dressed children to be employed 
for several hours each day to amuse a sickly cat " ; and 
by the American lady who ordered a rosewood coffin 
lined with satin and inlaid with silver for the obsequies 
of a deceased lapdog. Peoples^ as well as persons, may 
have their sympathies warped and drawn awry and thus 
develop into " cranks/^ 

As a rule, in Occidental countries the first and pre- 
vailing impulse of the police authorities, as well as of the 
public in general, is to knock all stray and helpless 
animals on the head, and in most cases this summary 
method of proceeding is adopted. Mrs. Jameson gives 
the following account of what she once saw in Vienna 
at a time when there was a great dread of hydrophobia, 
and orders were issued to massacre all unclaimed or 
unmuzzled dogs found within the precincts or in the 
suburbs of the city. The men employed for this pur- 
pose were armed with a short heavy club, which they 
hurled at the proscribed animal with such force as to 
kill or cripple it at a single blow. " It happened one 
day that, close to the edge of the river, near the Ferdi- 
nand's Briicke, one of these men flung his stick at a 
wretched dog, but with such bad aim that it fell into the 
river. The poor animal, following its instincts or its 
teaching, immediately plunged in, redeemed the stick, 
and laid it down at the feet of its owner, who snatching 
it up, dashed out the creature's brains." And yet 
Christian legislation, the civilization which claims to be 
based on a religion of mercy and compassion, has no law 
to punish such a monster of cruelty and base ingrati- 
tude, but rewards him for his ignominious deed. In 
fact, the conduct of this vile fellow was only the logical 
outcome and rude application of our current anthropo- 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 147 

centric ethics, as its effects are necessarily exhibited in a 
coarse and common nature. " A rufhan in the midst 
of Christendom," says Father Taylor, " is the savage 
of savages." But here the development of ruffianism 
is due directly to the influence of Christian zoopsy- 
chology and the brutal exercise of what Shelley calls 
the " terrible prerogative " which it confers upon man. 

It is for these reasons that charitable foundations 
for animals are usually regarded and often ridiculed 
as the amiable idiosyncrasies of eccentric individuals, 
or as the manifestations of a mild and harmless mono- 
mania peculiar to old maids and withered beldames, 
who, having found no worthier outlet for their loving 
natures, are content to pour the flood of their pent-up 
affections into this channel. It is, in sooth, a curious 
circumstance, and quite significant of the character of 
our civilization, that endowments of this kind are not 
with us, as in the East, the normal and legitimate ex- 
pression of a humane and benevolent spirit, but rather 
serve incidentally as the waste pipe of suppressed and 
soured emotions, having their real source in a generous 
and sensitive nature perverted by pessimistic and mis- 
anthropic views of life. Thence it comes that, with us 
Occidentals, the love of animals, instead of being the 
proper expansion of philanthropic sentiment, too often 
springs directly from intense and morbid hatred of man- 
kind. It was this feeling that made Schopenhauer 
shun the society of his fellow-men during life, and in 
dying bequeath his property to his poodles. " Men," 
he declared, " are the devils of the earth, and ani- 
mals are the souls which they take pleasure in torment- 
ing. This state of things is the consequence of that 
installation scene in the garden of Eden." Solomon, 



148 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

too, in one of his spleeny and cynical moods, when 
he "hated hfe," and, surfeited with its pleasures, de- 
nounced them all as "vanity and vexation of spirit,*' 
affirmed that " a man hath no pre-eminence above a 
beast " ; but in making this remark his purpose was 
not to elevate the beast, but to degrade the man. Both 
are reduced to the same plane of transitory existence 
by a process, not of levelling up, but of levelling down. 
"All go to one place, all are of the dust, and all turn 
to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man, whether 
it goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast, whether it 
goeth downward to the earth ? " The implication of 
the passage is that however gross and grovelling a beast 
may be, man is no better. 

In many portions of the East it is customary for 
Brahmans and Buddhists to express their joy and grati- 
tude on recovering from sickness or on receiving any 
good fortune, not by chanting a Te Deum, but by going 
to the market place, where wild birds are exposed for 
sale by Jewish, Mohammedan, and Christian fowlers, 
purchasing a number of them, carrying them to the 
city gates, opening their cages, and restoring to the 
captives their former liberty. Under similar circum- 
stances a European would most probably return thanks 
by inviting his friends to eat birds with him — just as 
the typical Englishman thinks the best use he can 
make of a fine day is to go out and kill something. 
There can be no doubt that this general attitude of 
mind is, in a great degree, the result of our current 
religious ideas and traditions and the early training 
that grows out of them. We are ourselves hardly con- 
scious how deeply ingrained are our prejudices on this 
point, and how very difficult it is to escape the insen- 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 149 

sible pressure of these moral influences which inclose 
us like an atmosphere. 

Not long ago a German Protestant parson, when 
asked to preach a sermon in support of a society for 
the prevention of cruelty to animals, replied that, al- 
though heartily sympathizing with the cause, he could 
not accede to the request, since the Bible did not furnish 
him with any text appropriate to such a discourse. As 
a humane man, he would be willing to make a speech 
in favour of it outside of the pulpit; but as a clergy- 
man and divinely commissioned expounder of the 
sacred Scriptures,' he was forced to pass it over in 
silence. Evidently the good parson was not well versed 
in the cunning arts of modern homiletics, and had little 
skill in the marvellous exegetic jugglery which easily 
conjures into passages of Holy Writ ideas and prin- 
ciples of which the writers never dreamed; otherwise 
he might have simply cut the Bible for his text, as was 
the practice of ancient sortilege, and preached from 
any passage thus selected a sermon suitable to the occa- 
sion. 

Some years since the Thiers chutzverein of Munich 
issued an appeal to the public, stating the aims and ob- 
jects of the association, and seeking to rouse the 
lethargic Bavarians to a more earnest appreciation of 
its usefulness and to greater liberality in its behalf. In 
addition to purely secular considerations and motives 
of mere morality, the appeal was also urged on religious 
grounds, and sustained by the following quotations 
from the Bible: "A righteous man regardeth the life 
of his beast; but the tender mercies of the wicked are 
cruel" (Prov. xii, 10). "He giveth to the beast his 
food, and to the young ravens which cry " (Ps. cxlvii. 



150 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

9). " He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and 
herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth 
food out of the earth " (Ps. civ. 14). " Who provideth 
for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto 
God, they wander for lack of meat " (Job xxxviii, 41). 
"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one 
of them shall not fall on the ground without your 
Father " (Matt, x, 29). 

There could be no better illustration of the poverty 
of our Holy Scriptures on this subject, and the little 
thought given to it by their authors than the citation 
of these texts, not one of which (except, perhaps, the 
first) has the slightest relevancy or was meant to teach 
kindness to animals, and to inculcate the principles 
advocated in the Munich circular. Even the passage 
from the Proverbs is a mere statement of fact, designed 
to illustrate the character of the righteous man, who 
regardeth even the life of his beast, and is contrasted 
with the wicked, whose bowels (as it ought to be trans- 
lated) are cruel. There is no recognition of the rights 
of the beast, and no injunction to respect them. The 
whole reference is to man and the sense of his own 
worthiness as his standard of conduct. In the other 
verses, cattle, ravens, and sparrows are mentioned sim- 
ply to show the watchful care and providence of God 
toward man. Here and there we meet with an isolated 
intimation of compensatory justice or tender feeling, 
as in the paragraph of the Mosaic law prohibiting the 
muzzling of the ox when it treadeth out the corn, and 
the sentimental or sanitary scruple about seething a 
kid in its mother's milk. It was the same crude and 
rudimentary conception of compensation that led the 
Greeks to decree that the asses which bore the stones 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 151 

for building the temple of Eleusis should be permitted 
to graze with impunity within the sacred grounds. 

The Jews were also forbidden to take the parent 
bird while " sitting upon the young or upon the eggs," 
although they were permitted to rob her of the young. 
This provision was unquestionably a wise one, intended 
to prevent the reckless destruction and consequent 
diminution of the supply of birds. But there is no 
element of kindness or compassion in it, any more than 
there is in modern laws for the preservation of game, 
which are designed solely to insure and increase the 
pleasures of the chase, protecting animals in order to 
enhance the sport of hunting and killing them. The 
regulation was of a purely prudential and economical 
character, like that contained in the same code, for- 
bidding the husbandman to sow divers seeds in his 
vineyard and thus deteriorate the quality of the grapes. 
The lawgiver was not moved by mercy to enact the 
former provision of the law any more than the latter. 

In like manner William Cowper says: 

I would not enter on my list of friends 

(Though graced with pohsh'd manners and fine sense, 

Yet wanting sensibiHty) the man 

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 

But this assertion does not imply on the part of 
the poet any high appreciation of the worth of worms, 
such as Darwin shows in describing the important func- 
tions which they perform in the economy of N'ature, 
but instances them on account of their supposed worth- 
lessness, in order to emphasize his estimation of sensi- 
bility as an ornament of human character. 

Throughout the Old and New Testament animals 



152 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

are always regarded from an anthropocentrie point of 
view, or in some satellitic relation to man. They are 
pronounced clean or nnclean, not on account of their 
own habits and propensities, but according to an arbi- 
trary standard of ceremonial purity, intended to secure 
his ritual or constructive cleanliness. He classifies 
them, like fungi, into edible and inedible, or "the 
beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not 
be eaten." They are made the scapegoats of his in- 
iquities; and minute descriptions are given of their 
sacrificial qualities and uses, whereby their innocent and 
untainted blood is shed in expiation of human trespasses 
and sins. They are punished for his offences. Because 
the Israelities were incredulous and disobedient, God 
not only laid waste their vines and their sycamore trees, 
but " he gave up their cattle also to the hail, and their 
flocks to hot thunderbolts." Peter looks upon them 
merely as " natural brute beasts made to be taken and 
destroyed." 

This spirit which everywhere prevails in the Jewish 
Scriptures and the Gospel records is predominant in 
patristic literature and mediaeval hagiology. It is said 
of Cardinal Bellarmine that he used to let bugs and 
insects bite him undisturbed, on the plea that " we shall 
have heaven to reward us for our temporal sufferings, 
but these poor creatures have nothing to look forward 
to except the enjoyment of the present life." Accord- 
ing to his fellow-Jesuit and biographer Fuligatti, his 
object, however, was not so much to gratify and regale 
the vermin, as to exercise his own patience and pre- 
pare his soul for paradise. " For this reason he would 
not brush away flies from his face,, although they are 
wont to be very annoying, especially at Rome in sum- 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 153 

mer." It was less an act of kindness than a lazy and 
nasty means of grace and of sanctification. 

The same penitential path to holiness was pursued 
by St. Macarius, of whom an old chronicler relates: 
" It happed on a tyme that he kylled a flee that bote 
hym; and when he sawe the blode of this flee, he re- 
pented hym, and anone unclothed hym, and wente 
naked in the deserte vi. monethes and suffred hym- 
selfe to be byten of flyes." 

The lives of the saints are full of legends concern- 
ing their friendly and familiar relations with wild ani- 
mals, and these stories are adduced as proofs of the 
power of holiness even over the brute creation. Thus 
the beasts and birds of the forest are said to have come 
at the call of St. Columbanus, flocking and frolicking 
about him like kittens (ludentes laetitia, velut catuli), 
and squirrels descended from the trees and sat on his 
shoulders or nestled in the folds of his mantle. A pack 
of wolves passed by him as he was kneeling in prayer, 
and did him no harm; and at his command a trouble- 
some bear, which infested a valley near Anegray, quit 
the country and never returned. A mischievous raven 
stole his mittens {tegumenta manum aut wantos); but 
the saint threatened that all its callow young should 
die unless the mittens were immediately restored, which 
was done accordingly. St. Gall spoke to a bear in 
Latin, ordering it to bring a stick of wood for the fire, 
and Bruin, whose available knowledge of this language 
was evidently superior to that of many a modern pro- 
fessor, obeyed forthwith. St. Goar bade the hinds 
(cervas) come out of the wood and be milked, and, un- 
like the spirits which Glendower could call from the 
vasty deep, they came when they were summoned. ThQ 



154 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

same holy man, on paying a visit to the bishop, hung 
his hat on a sunbeam which came in through the win- 
dow. Whether the hat would still remain suspended 
in the air or fall to the floor, if the sun should chance 
to go under a cloud, is a point left undecided by the 
hagiologist. 

Legendary literature records " a deal of skimble- 
skamble stuff ^' of this sort, which it would be tedious 
to repeat. All the glory of these acts haloes round the 
brows of the saints, whose kindly fellowship with the 
lower animals, although the natural result of a solitary, 
anchoretic life in regions remote from human habita- 
tions, is regarded as something miraculous, and has 
therefore failed to influence the conduct of ordinary 
mortals to any great extent. It is said that until the 
beginning of the seventeenth century it was deemed 
sacrilegious to kill a hare in the parish on the Tanat, 
in which was the shrine of St. Monacella, the protec- 
tress of hares. As a rule, however, such saintly guard- 
ianship contributes very little to the security of the 
creatures under their tutelary care. 

St. James of Venice, a saint of the thirteenth cen- 
tury, used to buy and release the birds tied up and 
tortured by Italian boys, and Leonardi da Vinci was ac- 
customed to purchase caged birds and set them free. 
It is also related of Pythagoras that he once bought 
the entire draught of a fisherman's net near Metapontus 
and restored the fish to their native element. But these 
isolated exhibitions of tender charity have not dimin- 
ished the slaughter nor prevented the caging of small 
birds in Italy, nor have they saved the eyes of a single 
thrush from the hot iron with which the Italians are 
'wont to destroy the sight of these songsters, in order 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 155 

that the perpetual darkness and loneliness of their 
lives may not only increase the quantity of their song, 
but also impart to it a peculiar quality and sweet strain 
of sadness. 

St. Anthony of Padua preached the gospel to the 
fishes; but whatever effect his sermons may have had 
in saving them in the future life from the devil's toast- 
ing fork, they were of no avail in rescuing a single 
finny denizen of the deep from the frying pan in this 
world. The sole object of the story is to illustrate and 
glorify the moving eloquence of the saint, who, after 
delivering his homily, may have gone back to his cloister 
and dined on his parishioners from the pond with as 
much relish as a backsliding Fiji neophyte would en- 
joy a sparerib of his proselyter and pastor. Pious 
Christians and good Catholics do not deny themselves 
the exciting pleasures of deerstalking, because St. 
Hubert had a vision of the cross between the antlers 
of a stag, and gave himself up to a life of religious 
meditation; on the contrary, the canonized Bishop of 
Liege has become the patron of hunters and the pro- 
tector of the chase. The legend of the wolf of Gubbio, 
which, at the injunction of St. Francis, abstained from 
mutton and obtained its food by going from house to 
house in the village, like a begging friar, has had no 
reformatory effect on wolves in general, nor was it in- 
tended to indicate a possible or desirable change of 
lupine habits, but solely to exhibit the power of the 
saintliness capable of working such a miracle. The 
practical ethical value of all these myths is simply 
null. 

As the records of ecclesiastical excommunication 
show, it is only over noxious animals, for the purpose 
11 



156 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

of cursing them, that the Church has claimed juris- 
diction or cared to assert it. In behalf of the count- 
less beasts which toil out their blameless lives in the 
service and at the mercy of man, she never utters a 
word of authority, nor lifts her crooked fingers in the 
form of benediction. True, she assigns a place in the 
calendar to St. Anthony, the patron and nominal pro- 
tector of animals; and from the 17th to the 23d of 
January Eomans of all classes — princes, peasants, car- 
dinals, cabmen, and campagnuoli^nsed to bring their 
horses and asses to be blessed and sprinkled with holy 
water before the old church of S. Antonia Abbate in 
the Piazza di S. Maria Maggiore. But in most cases, 
where some merciful intervention was actually needed 
in favour of overworked and much-abused hacks and 
cart horses, this fesia proved to be a holiday for the 
beast far less than for its owner, who rode through the 
streets arrayed in his best apparel, and adorned with 
feathers and ribbons of brilliant hues, and spent the 
day in careering from one wine shop to another and 
carousing with his friends. The ceremony, which al- 
ways seemed to be performed perfunctorily, as though 
it were deemed an indulgent concession to the sancta 
simplicitas of the old Franciscan, was accepted as a joke 
and utilized as a lark, and never exerted any appreciable 
influence in restraining violence or inspiring kindness 
toward the lower animals. Indeed, the tutelar saint is 
seldom invoked during the rest of the year, except in 
maledictions. "May St. Anthony smite you!" is still 
the popolano's favourite imprecation on his horse or don- 
key; and fearing lest the request should not be granted, 
or willing to show his faith by his works, he plies the 
lash or wields the cruel pungolo in the saint's stead. 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 157 

A similar festival is celebrated in the highlands 
of Bavaria and especially at Tolz, on the 6th of Novem- 
ber, in honour of St. Leonhard, the local patron of 
horses and neat cattle, which on that occasion are curi- 
ously adorned with many-coloured fillets and flags and 
driven in procession, attended by priests with the sacred 
emblems of the altar and holy banners and all the 
cheap pomp and tinsel trappings of the Church. In 
this eorso {Leonhardfalirt) each peasant strives to outdo 
the other in gaudiness of equipment, and thinks more 
of his own bravery than of the comfort of the quad- 
rupeds for whose welfare the feast is supposed to have 
been instituted. Whatever benefit may accrue to the 
brute is purely incidental and wholly secondary to the 
pride and pleasure of the owner. 

The mystic and visionary yater serapJiicus, Francis 
of Assisi, sang his Cantico delle Creature, in which he 
thanked the Lord for brother sun, and sister moon, 
and mother earth prolific of fruits and flowers. He 
even greeted the wind and the fire as brothers, and 
the water and bodily death as sisters, but passed over, 
in significant silence, all sentient creatures and recog- 
nised no kinship with beast, or bird, or creeping thing. 
On another occasion, it is true, as he was taking a walk 
near Beragna, he addressed the birds as his " winged 
brothers," and bade them praise their Creator and love 
Him with all their heart. And the birds, it is added, 
came to him and perched on his hand and let him 
stroke their plumage and would not depart from him 
until he made the sign of the cross over them and dis- 
missed them with his blessing. In the neighbourhood 
of Greccia he freed a hare from a snare and the grate- 
ful creature took refuge in his bosom and refused to 



158 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

leave him. Little lambs are also said to have followed 
after him, which, however, is by no means a marvellous 
thing for little lambs to do. He reproached a butcher, 
asking, " Why do you hang up and torture the lambs, 
my brothers, in this manner? " To this naive and utter- 
ly idle question the butcher might have replied that 
his " sin's not accidental, but a trade," and that if it 
is a crime to slaughter sheep, then the eater of mutton 
chops must be regarded as particeps criminis. Again, 
he expressed his sympathy for some turtle doves in a 
cage, saying: "Why have you, my dear sisters, simple, 
innocent, and chaste creatures, allowed yourselves to be 
caught ? " — a remark that would seem to censure the 
foolishness of the birds, rather than the ruthlessness of 
the fowler. Indeed, all this cheap commiseration of 
suffering creatures remained a barren sentiment, which 
did not contribute one jot or one tittle to the allevia- 
tion of their present distress, nor tend in the least to 
prevent its recurrence. There is no evidence that the 
example of the soft-hearted saints ever converted a 
single hard-hearted sinner from the error of his ways 
and led him henceforth to treat the lower animals 
with tenderer care and consideration. Nor is there 
any necessity of discarding these strange stories as mere 
pious fictions. Wild animals might easily be attracted 
to a gentle hermit in the solitude of the forest, par- 
ticularly as they were, in most cases, unaccustomed to 
human beings and had not yet learned to fear them. 
Birds and beasts on islands uninhabited by man have 
uniformly shown the most perfect confidence in the 
discoverers of these islands and only learned by experi- 
ence that man was to be avoided as their enemy. Some 
individuals have a certain magnetic influence over ani- 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 159 

mals. Hawthorne ascribes this peculiar power to the 
faunlike Donatello, and Thoreau could put himself 
into relations of sympathy with the mute, cold-blooded, 
and unsocial fish and make it swim into his hand. 
King Ludwig I of Bavaria used to admire and envy 
an old woman, to whom the birds in the Court Garden 
at Munich would come in flocks, fluttering about her 
head and perching on her shoulders. His Majesty en- 
deavoured to inspire them with the same confidence, 
but no calling or coaxing could induce them to ap- 
proach him. He could not understand why they should 
prefer to light on a plebeian rather than on a royal 
hand; and finally in despair of their vulgar taste de- 
sisted from all further eft'orts to win their favour and 
settled a pension for life on the old hag who could 
work such witchery. 

" Fromm waren die Miinchener zu jeder Zeit," says 
one of their most quaint and genial chroniclers; and 
there are few cities in Europe where the priests are 
more zealous or exert a greater influence over the popu- 
lace, or where the authority of the Church is more re- 
spected than in Munich. Yet no voice of warning or 
reproof was ever heard from chancel or confessional 
against the cruelty to animals, which used to disgrace 
the Bavarian capital. Veal is the favourite food of the 
inhabitants, and is consumed in enormous quantities; 
and it is no exaggeration to affirm that, before the erec- 
tion of the slaughterhouse outside of the city, every 
calf carried to the shambles was made to suffer i?i 
transitu the tortures of a man crucified with his head 
downward. An archiepiscopal Hirtenbrief would have 
sufficed to check this brutality toward beasts; but un- 
fortunately no such writ of mercy, no pastoral letter 



160 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

of pity, ever issued from the palace in Promenaden- 
strasse. The late pope, ninth of Piuses and first of 
infallible pontiffs, decided ex-cathedra that animals have 
no soul, and that, therefore, we are not bound to them 
by any of those moral duties and sacred obligations 
which we owe, in general, to our fellow-men, and in 
particular to them that are of the household of faith 
and are united to us by ties of religion. This opinion 
is fully indorsed and practically exemplified by the 
Italian donkey driver, who, to every remonstrance 
against the wanton beating and bruising of his patient 
beast of burden, retorts " Non e cristiano/' at the same 
time dealing a succession of vigorous thwacks with a 
heavy cudgel by way of adding emphasis to his dog- 
matic assertion. Thus, the bipedal brute continues to 
maul and maim the quadrupedal beast in the spirit 
of the Vaticanic dictum, and in accordance with a 
religious principle so clear and simple as to be com- 
prehensible to the dullest asinaio: the poor creature 
is not a Christian, and therefore has no rights which 
a good Catholic is bound to respect.* 

" Non e cosa lattezzata " (it is not a baptized thing) 
is the Italian peasant's justification of any suffering 
he may wantonly inflict upon the lower forms of life. 
In England the cruel pastime of " cock-throwing," 
formerly practised by men and especially by schoolboys 
on Shrove Tuesday, has claimed a religious origin and 
consecration by being brought into causal connection 
with Peter's denial of Christ, as the poet Sedley sings: 



* It is interesting to note that in Sheffield, England, " Chris- 
tian " is popularly used to signify a man in distinction from a. 
brute beast. 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 161 

-<- 

Mayst thou be punished for St. Peter's crime, 
And on Shrove Tuesday perish in thy prime. 

Since the crowing of the cock served as a rebuke 
to the recreant apostle and caused him to repent of 
his treachery, it is difficult to see why this valiant and 
vigilant fowl should be held responsible for his cow- 
ardice. On the contrary, one would imagine that all 
cocks would henceforth be as highly honoured and 
fondly cherished in Christendom as the descendants 
of the geese, which saved the Capitol, were by the an- 
cient Eomans. But it is the fatality of all vicarious 
schemes of retribution to reverse our natural and un- 
perverted conceptions of justice and to make the in- 
nocent expiate the misdeeds of the guilty. 

The efforts of some of the popes to suppress the 
Spanish bullfights were due, not to any pity for the 
tortured animals, but solely to the desire to prevent 
the destruction of human hfe; and these disgusting 
spectacles, which are the favourite sport of the most 
Christian nation of Europe, still take place under the 
auspices of the Church, a chapel, in which mass is read 
before the massacre begins, being connected with the 
arena. There the picador says his prayers and the 
functions of religion are most incongruously mixed up 
with funciones de tows. That the weekly proceeds of 
these holiday butcheries in Madrid should be devoted 
to the general hospital is a most striking example of 
anthropocentric selfishness and an unconscious satire 
on Christian charity. Indeed, when a society for the 
prevention of cruelty to animals was first established 
at Madrid, the Spaniards, whom foreign infiuences and 
fashion had brought into s^Tiipathy with the move- 
ment, proposed that a grand bullfight should be ar- 



162 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

ranged in order to raise funds for the newly organized 
and merciful institution. 

The idea of blood-relationship, which, as we have 
already shown, formed the basis of primitive society 
and of which the doctrine of humanity is but a wider 
development, has received still further extension 
through recent scientific researches tending to estab- 
lish a genealogical connection between man and the 
lower animals. There can be no doubt that the gen- 
eral acceptance of the theory of evolution would exert 
upon the Western mind a wholesome influence in 
favour of greater consideration for all forms and em- 
bodiments of life, corresponding to the benign effect 
which the belief in metempsychosis has produced upon 
the less positive and more mystical and metaphysical 
mind of the East. 

Wer sich selbst und Andre kennt 

Wird auch hier erkennen ; 
Orient und Occident 

Sind nicht mehr zu trennen. 

Who knows his own and others' bent 

Will here, too, clearly see 
That Orient and Occident 

Can no more severed be. 

!N'ot only is the present drift of scientific research 
strongly set in this direction, but minds of the high- 
est culture in every department of thought share in the 
same movement. Thus comparative psychology, as will 
be shown in a subsequent chapter, is gradually over- 
turning one barrier after another, which a narrow and 
obsolescent metaphysics had erected between man and 
beast in respect to their mental faculties and moral 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 163 

qualities, and even the comparative study of languages 
is rapidly removing from this field of investigation 
artificial obstacles of a like character, which an anti- 
quated philology had declared to be fixed and impass- 
able. These points are fully discussed elsewhere and 
are referred to here only to indicate their ethical bear- 
ings upon the question of animals' rights and to show 
the practical agreement, in this respect, between the 
results of Oriental speculation and of modern evolu- 
tionary science. 

The metempsychosist holds that the scintilla animce 
divines or divine spark wanders through eight million 
four hundred thousand creatures before it is fit to 
animate a human being. Still every incarnation is an 
essential and sacred link in the unbroken chain of 
existence that connects the mollusk with man and 
slowly lifts the whole out of the mirage of phenomena 
and the illusions of selfhood to ultimate reunion with 
the Supreme and Eternal Spirit, from which it ema- 
nated, and which is the only reality. The evolutionist 
teaches that the struggle for existence and the sur- 
vival of the fittest through natural selection went on 
millions of years through successive ages before the 
principle of life or intelligence found its highest em- 
bodiment in man. According to both of these theories 
man is not an isolated product of Nature, called into 
existence by a divine fiat, but a part of the general 
order of things with no break in the continuity of his 
development out of the lowest organisms from the 
protoplasmic cell upwards. 

It is evident that our moral and religious instruc- 
tion, based upon the anthropocentric assumptions of 
Judaism and Christianity, has been hitherto lamentably 



164: EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS. 

defective. Perhaps, with the introduction of more 
rational views of cosmogony and anthropology, and 
broader and more generous principles of psychology 
into our elementary text-books, through the union of 
a sounder physics with a larger metaphysics, our chil- 
dren's children may finally learn that there are in- 
alienable animal as well as human rights, and that, 
in respect to the ties of moral obligation and the claims 
to kind and just treatment which they imply, not 
only " all nations of men," as Paul affirmed on Mar's 
Hill, but, as the Indian sage declared, " all living 
creatures are of one blood." To the Hebrew decalogue 
and the Christian beatitudes must be added the first of 
Buddha's ten commandments: 

Kill not for Pity's sake, nor dare to slay 
The meanest creature on its upward way. 



n. 
ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 



CHAPTER Y. 

MIXD IIs^ MAX AXD BEXJTE. 

Oriental speculation and Occidental science. Metempsychosis and 
evolution. Psychical kinship of man and brute. Automatic 
and volitional mental action. Freedom of the will in man 
and the lower animals. Consciousness in the lowest organ- 
isms. Protoplasm and protista. Chemical fabrication of 
products of vital forces. Berzelius and Wohler. Schneider's 
classification of animal impulses. The nutritive impulse and 
its final purpose. Oken's classification. Impulses of sensa- 
tion, perception, conception, and thought in the order of their 
development. Conjoint action of these impulses in the men- 
tal activity of the lower animals. Interesting experiment of 
Mobius with a pike. Incorrect inferences. How a horse 
learns the meaning of " whoa." Pains taken by parent birds 
to teach their young. Heine's lizard. Untenable distinctions 
between men and brutes. Too great importance attached to 
man's ability to look upward. Herbart's exact and concise 
statement of the grounds of man's superiority. Influence 
of infancy on human progress. Form and flexibility of the 
hand. Mental operations the spiritualizations of manual op- 
erations. Didactic value of mechanical labour. 

If we compare the latest achieyemeiits of Western 
thought with the results of Eastern speculation, we 
find in the doctrine of evolution a striking confirma- 

165 



166 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

tion of the genetic and essential unity of organic nature, 
which the theory of metempsychosis assumes. Occi- 
dental science has firmly established what Oriental 
metaphysics only vaguely dreamed of. The seemingly 
fantastic and extravagant assertions of Indian sages 
concerning the transmigrations of the soul, and the 
countless ages of its successive reincarnations in its 
upward strivings toward the goal of complete emanci- 
pation from material existence, are but lengthened 
foreshadowings and grotesque adumbrations of the 
doctrine of natural selection and progressive develop- 
ment through the struggle for existence, involving 
perpetual adaptations to changes of environment that 
have been going on for millions of years, and produc- 
ing organisms in which the intellectual faculty frees 
itself more and more from the bondage of material con- 
ditions, and asserts with constantly increasing emphasis 
its supremacy over mere brute force.* 

Modern scientific research has not only discovered 
a multitude of physical correspondences — analogical 
and homological — between man and brute — ^but it has 



* Kapila, the founder of the Sankhya school of philosophy, may 
thus be regarded, in a certain sense, as the Indo- Aryan prototype 
of Darwin. The problems which they endeavour to solve are much 
the same, and their methods differ only as the poetic and mystic 
genius of the Hindu differs from the positive and matter-of-fact 
genius of the Englishman. In Kapila's writings, the Sankhya 
Pravachana Sutra and Sankhya Karika, there are many thoughts 
and expressions that would fit admirably into the Origin of Spe- 
cies. This famous muni discarded revelation and recognised no 
other final cause than great creating nature {mulaprakriti) ; and 
his philosophical system is characterized by native scholiasts as 
nirisvara, usually translated "atheistic," but really signifying 
"agnostic." 



MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 167 

also detected and brought to light many irrefragable 
proofs of their psychical kinship. The more exact and 
extended our knowledge of animal intelligence be- 
comes, the more remarkable does its resemblance to 
human intelligence appear. The attempt to discrimi- 
nate between them by referring all operations of the 
former to instinct and all operations of the latter to 
reason is now generally abandoned. Automatic mental 
action is known to characterize men far more, and the 
lower animals far less, than psychologists formerly sup- 
posed. In an hypnotic state the conscious psychical 
activities of the individual, as regards the exercise of 
his rational and volitional powers, are almost wholly 
suspended and superseded by automatic movements and 
alien impulses of suggestion, over which he has no 
control. 

Indeed, there is strong presumptive evidence that 
consciousness, which is indicated by the simplest exer- 
cise of choice, and may be regarded as the distinctive 
peculiarity and fundamental element of Mind, mani- 
fests itself in the lowest forms of life, and is present 
even in protoplasmic and protozoic organisms. From 
this starting point the process of development is grad- 
ual, but continuous, from the amoeba to man. 

No psychologist has as yet been able to draw a hard 
and fast line between volitional, instinctive, and reflex 
actions, or to determine with any degree of precision 
what activities are attributable to each. It is highly 
probable that the so-called self-determinations of the 
will are as mechanical in their origin, and as definitely 
fixed in their operation under the influence of motives 
of various kinds, as are reflex actions under the influ- 
ence of their appropriate stimuli. If we could trace 



168 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

all the complex incitements and impulses which lead 
the assassin to lift his arm and strike the fatal blow, 
we should doubtless find the necessity of the action 
as absolute and inevitable as the movement by which 
the decapitated frog raises its leg to scratch an irritative 
drop of nitric acid from its side. The argument in 
favour of human freedom, based upon an appeal to con- 
sciousness, has no validity whatever, since the forces, 
of which the act of willing is the resultant, lie outside 
of the sphere and beyond the cognizance of conscious- 
ness. Back of the mere recognition of the fact that an 
action is performed in obedience to the will — and this 
is as far as the power of consciousness extends or can 
claim any authority — is the profounder and more mys- 
terious problem of the origin and constitution of the 
will itself, of which consciousness can have no imme- 
diate knowledge and furnish no satisfactory solution. 
What a man may will to do, when acted upon by cer- 
tain inducements or temptations, was prearranged long 
before his birth, not by the arbitrary decree of a vin- 
dictive deity, but by prenatal influences and hereditary 
tendencies, facts of organization which may be subse- 
quently modified by the social and moral environment 
into which he is born and the effects of early educa- 
tion. This is the truth which is symbolically expressed 
by the dogma of predestination, a dodrina horrihilis, 
as Calvin himself admitted it to be, that loses nothing of 
this awful character by being transferred from the 
province of theology to that of physiology. 

It is true that we perceive an immense disparity 
between the highest human and the lowest animal in- 
telligence; but, in both cases, the manifestations of 
mental activity are, from a physiological point of view. 



MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 169 

the products of like nervous processes and molecular 
changes. If the operations of mind in man appear to 
us so variable as to be incalculable, and to render it 
often quite impossible to predict what they may be in 
any particular case, this uncertainty is due to our 
ignorance of all the factors and countless impulses 
which combine to produce them. In this respect, a 
mental resultant does not differ essentially from a me- 
chanical resultant, and would be found on analysis to 
be the exact equivalent of all the motive energies which 
enter into its composition. But these energies are so 
manifold in their complexity and so mysterious in their 
workings that it would be impossible for any intelli- 
gence, not endowed with omniscience, to detect and 
determine them. The fact that mental actions are un- 
foreseeable is therefore no proof that they are not fixed 
and inevitable. Man is a free agent when he acts with- 
out constraint upon the exercise of his will; but there 
is no such thing as free agency, if this term is used as 
referring to the origination of the will itself. The in- 
dividual is conscious of acting according to his wishes; 
but he is not, and never can be, fully conscious of the 
forces which cause him to wish one thing rather than 
another, since these are often prenatal proclivities and 
idiosyncrasies, hereditary peculiarities of temperament 
running in the blood and remote from the domain of 
consciousness, or inbred predispositions, which in many 
cases he can neither know nor resist. 

An appeal to consciousness as a means of explaining 
the real nature of psychical phenomena is as superficial 
and fallacious as an appeal to the senses as a means 
of explaining the real nature of physical phenomena. 
Whether applied to the microcosm or to the macro- 



170 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

cosm, the method is the same, and the inferences are 
in both cases equally unsafe and delusive. The psy- 
chologist who asserts that he is free, because he feels 
himself to be so, is, in his logical processes of thought, 
a survival of the physicist who maintained that the 
earth is a fiat and stationary body round which the 
sun revolves, because he saw it to be so. To accept such 
evidence as final and irreversible is as fatal to the 
progress of psychology to-day as it was for many centu- 
ries to the progress of astronomy. 

It is foreign to my present purpose to discuss the 
question of human freedom or human necessity. I sim- 
ply desire to show that whatever considerations may 
be adduced in favour of either hypothesis apply alike 
to man and to the lower animals. If Descartes declared 
brutes to be mere machines, La Mettrie had no diffi- 
culty, by following the same line of reasoning, in push- 
ing his argument to its legitimate conclusion, and prov- 
ing the same to be as true of human beings. 

In plants, too, we not only detect rudiments of con- 
sciousness and indications of something like volition, 
but also discover traces of nervous organization mani- 
festing itself in sensitiveness to irritation. Infusoria, 
polyps, sea-anemones, holothures, and other radiates 
distinguish between edible and inedible, or palatable 
or unpalatable objects, in their selection of food. Their 
power of choice, so far as it goes, does not differ in the 
manner of its exercise from that of the most fastidious 
gourmand. The sea pudding is, in this respect, the 
peer of the daintiest diner-out that ever stretched his 
elegant legs under the mahogany. 

The eminent zoopsychologist, Wilhelm Wundt, af- 
firms, as one of the points which modern science has 



MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. I7l 

settled beyond a peradventHre, the fact that the faculty 
of perce^^tioii in the lower animals differs from that of 
man only in degree. He discovers between man and 
brute no broader and deeper chasm than between brutes 
themselves. All animated organisms form a chain of 
homogeneous beings^ which are firmly linked together^ 
and in wliich there is no break. Even the immense 
intellectual changes which man has undergone, corre- 
sponding to the growth of his brain in size and struc- 
tural complexity, are the results of gradual develop- 
ment, and not due, in any sense, to a new departure. 
An obsolete psychology, with its arbitrary divisions 
of the mental faculties into many categories, has always 
been fond of drawing fanciful lines of demarcation 
between them; but now that we have come to recog- 
nise all spiritual life as a continuous whole^ we must 
accept every living thing as a constituent part of this 
great whole. Drawing conclusions and forming judg- 
ments are elementary psychical processes, and belong 
to the very earliest stages of conscious life as the factors 
of the highest intellectual powers. 

Descending still lower in the scale of animate and 
organic existence, we find that the closest microscopic 
observation, with the help of the most powerful mag- 
nifying lenses, has not yet enabled the naturalist to 
establish a clear and precise boundary line between the 
animal and vegetable kingdoms, or to set up a criterion 
for determining with any degree of certainty what 
organisms belong to each. This difficulty has led to 
the recognition of a third group of organisms, or vital 
substances, called protista, which are neither animals 
nor plants, but form, as it were, the homogeneous and 

protoplasmic material out of which both are evolved. 
12 



172 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

But even here the Hnes of .separation between protista 
and plants^ on the one hand, and animals, on the other 
hand, are by no means distinct and well defined, prov- 
ing how gradually and imperceptibly the realms of Na- 
ture, as we call them, all merge into each other, and 
have really no existence except as modes of thinking in 
the mind of man. 

These most primogenial of all creatures, the protista, 
although apparently mere clots of albumen without 
organs of sense or any sort of nervous system, are not 
only perceptibly affected by light, but are also attracted 
by different substances, selecting those which they prefer 
for nutriment, and showing remarkable activity and 
even considerable energy and ingenuity in procuring 
their food. 

There are organisms which begin their life as plants 
and finally develop into animals; and there are others 
which undergo a reverse transformation from animals 
into plants, being at first endowed with locomotion, 
and afterward becoming stationary and taking root. 
Infusoria are thus metamorphosed into algce. 

How a structureless mass of matter becomes endowed 
with sensation and the power of propagation, and is 
thus changed from a chemical compound into a living 
creature, is a mystery which neither the dogma of divine 
creation nor the doctrine of spontaneous generation 
suffices to clear up and make perfectly comprehensible. 
Only analogy can throw any light upon the genesis 
and evolution of organic life. We know that environ- 
ing influences induce inorganic or amorphous sub- 
stances to crystallize: why may not favouring influ- 
ences also vitalize them? We observe that changes 
of environment cause many species of animals and 



MIND m MAN AND BEUTE. 1^3 

plants to thrive, to decline, and even to become ex- 
tinct: why may not environment, heat, light, moisttire, 
and other propitious conditions have originated the 
first germs of life? If living beings were produced 
arbitrarily by a creative fiat, there is no reason why they 
should ever undergo transformations of any kind in 
consequence of changes in their external conditions, 
or should ever die out except in obedience to a de- 
structive fiat. The fact that they do suffer variations 
and become extinct and are superseded by other organ- 
isms, as the result of a change of environment, would 
naturally suggest that they began their existence as 
products of environment; in other words, that they 
spontaneously appeared when the proper originary con- 
ditions were realized. It is also in accordance with 
the theory of the spontaneous generation of organic 
life that there should be no break in the continuity of 
its development from the lowest to the highest forms. 

Given a piece of protoplasm, and science is com- 
petent to derive from it all living organisms from the 
monad to man. The problem now presented to the 
biologist for solution is the production of protoplasm, 
or the discovery of the circumstances and conditions 
under which a chemical compound becomes sensitive 
and reproductive. 

"We have already seen that amorphous matter, when 
acted upon by certain forces — such as light, heat, cold, 
or sudden movement — becomes crystalline, and that 
these crystals have the power of reproducing them- 
selves. Water, if perfectly at rest, may be reduced to 
a temperature below the freezing-point, and still remain 
fluid; but the slightest jar will crystallize it into ice. 
This phenomenon of crystallogenic attraction is a mys- 



174 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

tery, but, nevertheless, a well-recognised fact. Again, 
if a crystal is brought into contact with amorphous 
matter under proper conditions, it propagates itself, 
converting the mass into crystals after its kind. The 
physicist understands the nature and process of crystal- 
lization as little as the biologist does the nature and 
process of primitive germination. If the conditions 
are present in the one case, the crystal appears; and, 
if the conditions are present in the other case, the germ 
appears. This is all that can be said about it. But the 
inexplicability of either process can not be urged as 
an argument against its actuality. 

That a plant or an animal may assimilate elements 
from the water, earth, and air, and use them to build 
up its own peculiar cell-structure, is neither more nor 
less intelligible than that a crystal, when placed in a 
proper solution, should change it into crystalline struc- 
ture similar to its own. The gradual development of 
a living organism out of undifferentiated plasma in 
response to appropriate stimuli, such as heat, light, 
moisture, and electrical energy, is as easily conceivable 
as that two gases, hydrogen and oxygen, should com- 
bine in the form of water, which again, under the 
action of heat, vaporizes and disappears as steam. 

In 1827 the Swedish chemist Berzelius declared that 
"we shall never be able to make in the laboratory 
any of the products of vital forces." Shortly after- 
ward his pupil, Wohler, disproved this so positive as- 
sertion by the chemical production of urea; and since 
that time quite a number of the products of vital force, 
such as indigo, salicine, and alizarine, have been fabri- 
cated chemically, and sometimes in so great quantities 
and with so little expense as almost wholly to super- 



MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 175 

sede the natural products as articles of commerce. The 
synthetic chemist can even produce some of the crystals 
(quartz, rubies, spinels, and simili distinguishable from 
leal diamonds only by experts) which in I^ature's labora- 
tory it took ages to form and to endow with their pecul- 
iar structure and marvellous beauty. These facts show 
the progress which science has made during the last 
half century in discovering the secrets of Nature and 
in imitating her mysterious processes; and there is no 
apparent reason why the creation of the products of 
vital force should not be followed by the production 
of vital force itself, and the artificial genesis of the 
germs of life. 

Not only are the physical antecedents of psychical 
phenomena, but also the impulses and adjustive move- 
ments resulting in mental activity, the same in the 
lower animals and in man. Perhaps the most com- 
prehensive classification of these impulses is that given 
by Dr. G. H. Schneider (Der thierische Wille, Leipzig, 
1880), who distributes them into four categories: im- 
pulses of sensation (Empfindungstriebe), impulses of per- 
ception {Wahrnelimungstriebe), impulses of conception 
(Vorstellungstriebe), and impulses of thought {Gedanken- 
triehe), or ideation. 

Back of them all, however, lies the great original 
source and efficient cause of organic activity and in- 
tellectual life in its multiform manifestations; namely, 
the nutritive impulse (ErndJirungstriel)), or the craving 
for food. Every expression of feeling, every exercise 
of the will, every exhibition of intelligence in the lower 
animals and in man, can be traced to hunger as its 
fountain-head. From the pressure of hunger and the 
desire to prevent its recurrence spring the love of ac- 



176 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

quisition, the systematic accumulation of wealth, the 
idea of ownership in things, or the general conception 
of jDersonal property, which is the strongest cement 
of social and domestic life, codes of laws and systems 
of morals, discoveries, inventions, industrial and com- 
mercial enterprises, scientific researches, and the high- 
est achievements of culture and civilization. 

It is true that, as a man rises in the scale of intelli- 
gence, other and nobler incentives to activity come 
into operation and act even more powerfully than the 
primal nutritive impulse. The latter, however, always 
asserts and insists upon the priority of its claims; and 
not until these have been satisfied and the stress of 
hunger relieved, and in some degree permanently 
guarded against, does the individual think of devot- 
ing his energies to higher pursuits. Spinoza had to 
secure his subsistence by grinding his stent of lenses 
before he could gratify his love of philosophy and find 
leisure to work out the ethical and metaphysical prob- 
lems in the solution of which all his intellectual powers 
were engaged. It was the chief grievance of Xantippe 
that her husband would waste his time in getting up, 
according to what has since been known as the Socratic 
method, unprofitable " corners " in speculative ques- 
tions which brought in no pecuniary returns, and 
neither kept the pot boiling nor contributed to the ali- 
mentary worth of its contents. Still, it is highly prob- 
able that the nutritive impulse would have been stronger 
in the Grecian sage if he had been thrown upon his 
own resources for subsistence, and had not relied upon 
the sufficient persistency of this natural instinct in his 
spirited spouse to supply the wants of a modest Athe- 
nian household. 



MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 177 

Parallels to this feature of the conjugal life of Soc- 
rates are found in many a New England village of 
to-day, where we see the exuberant practical energy of 
the wife repressing the easy-going, wool-gathering hus- 
band, and reducing him first to a domestic nullity, and 
finally to a confirmed loafer and peripatetic philosopher, 
sententious and seedy, wise and worthless, loved and 
laughed at by all men. 

The final purpose of the nutritive impulse and of 
the various subsidiary impulses which minister to it 
is the preservation of the species. Seeking food, fight- 
ing foes, forming friendships, sexual attraction, care 
of offspring, social feeling, love, hatred, fear, jealousy, 
cruelty, kindness, revenge, deceit, " all thoughts, all 
passions, all delights," are subservient to this one 
great end. 

Not only is the preservation of the species the aim 
of all the energies developed by animal organisms in 
their present state of being, but it is also the genesis 
of the belief in a life to come. The doctrine of the im- 
mortality of the soul springs from man's unwillingness 
to give up the struggle for existence, even after the 
dissolution of his physical frame. It is the expression 
of his antipathy to annihilation and his longing to live 
and to develop to a still higher degree his spiritual 
powers. The soul is the ideal of individuality in its 
purest form, just as the gods of a people are its ideals 
of humanity in its purest form, although it may be, 
as Dr. Svoboda remarks, that " a soul which no one 
remembers is as devoid of reality as a god which no one 
worships.'' 

Impulses of sensation are produced by immediate 
contact of the living organism with external objects; 



1Y8 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOaY. 

impulses of perception are called forth by seeing ob- 
jects at a greater or less distance; impulses of con- 
ception originate in the presentation of real but absent 
objects to the mind by the power of memory; impulses 
of thought may arise out of the mere imagination of 
objects or the simple apprehension of things not actually 
existing. There is^ however, no break in this series 
of cognitive movements, from the most automatic re- 
flex action to the most complex processes of abstraction 
and generalization; nor is it possible to determine how 
far they are due to mental and to non-mental factors, 
or to draw a boundary line defining the limits of each. 
We know that thought and emotion are always con- 
nected with certain molecular movements in the brain. 
Whether the cerebral movements are the cause or mere- 
ly the concomitants of the mental manifestations we 
can not tell. All that we can assert is that, within 
the limits of our experience, the latter are inseparable 
from the former, and wholly dependent upon them. 

In the lower animals the lower impulses are pre- 
dominant, and this predominance is used by Schneider, 
in a general way, as the basis of psychological classifi- 
cation. Thus he regards protozoa and radiates as sen- 
sation animals; the mollusks and articulates as per- 
ception animals; the vertebrates, with exception of 
the human species, as conception animals; and man 
as pre-eminently a thought animal. Nevertheless, it 
is to be observed that man acts in obedience to all 
these impulses, and that the lower animals, which 
are usually governed by impulses of sensation, percep- 
tion, or conception, may and do exercise thought, and 
are influenced by imagination and reason. 

Oken regarded the life of the lower animals as a sort 



MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 179 

of mesmeric state, due to the ascendency of the sleeping 
soul located in the liver over the waking soul with its 
seat in the brain, and classified them according to 
their supposed temperaments into melancholy, sanguine, 
and choleric. The first class comprises fishes and rep- 
tiles; the second, birds; and the third, mammals. Ani- 
mals of the first class have memory and sensation only; 
those of the second class have perception, conception, 
and concrete ideas; those of the third class have under- 
standing, intelligence, and reason, but not self-con- 
sciousness, which is the sole attribute of man. This 
classification, although superficially suggestive of that 
proposed by Schneider, is loose and unscientific; and, 
instead of being based upon accurate observation, it 
is made to suit certain mystical notions and metaphys- 
ical theories. 

Children, savages, and the rude and ignorant classes 
of civilized society yield more readily than highly devel- 
oped races and individuals to the lower impulses of sen- 
sation and perception, as is evident from their lack of 
self-restraint when excited by the presence of desirable 
objects, and their disposition to gratify their appetites 
without thought of the future. 

Schneider maintains that squirrels, hamsters, and 
woodchucks, in collecting and storing food, act solely 
in obedience to the impulses of perception and concep- 
tion. Thus the perception of a nut causes them to 
pick it up; the conception of their hole or burrow im- 
pels them to carry off the nut; and, when they have 
reached their abode, the perception of the place induces 
them to lay it down or store it. Such an explanation, 
however, really explains nothing, and is wholly inade- 
quate to account for the animal's conduct. ■ It does 



180 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

not furnish any sufficient motive for the action, and 
therefore leaves it as unintelligible as it was before. 
If these creatures exercise no foresight, and have no 
notion that the nut is to serve them as food in the com- 
ing winter, they would, if hungry, eat it at once; if 
not hungry, they would let it alone; they surely would 
not store it for future use. No squirrel is tempted by 
a fair exterior to try his teeth on a hollow nut, or to 
add worthless material of this sort to his winter supply 
of provisions. But, if he were governed solely by the 
aforesaid impulses, he would not be capable of such 
discrimination. The mental process which leads him 
to discard every nut that has not a sound kernel in it 
is not confined to a simple impulse of perception. The 
fact, too, that he does not merely pick up the nuts 
which he happens to find in his wanderings, but sets 
out in search of them, proves that the action is due 
to the exercise of thought, and that the agent is clearly 
conscious of the purpose for which it is performed. 

The propensity of the carrion fly, on the other hand, 
to lay its eggs in putrefying flesh, which will supply 
its young with proper nourishment, is stimulated and 
directed wholly by the impulse of perception, and espe- 
cially by the sense of smell, since it often lays its eggs 
on plants which have the odour of carrion, but not its 
nutritive qualities, so that the young perish from lack 
of food as soon as they are hatched. Again, the 
tumblebug, on perceiving a small, round object, is 
seized with an irresistible impulse to roll it, although 
it may be a piece of wood or stone instead of a ball 
of dung containing its eggs. But this sort of fatuity 
is, unfortunately, not confined to tumblebugs. One 
meets with many persons in daily life who are easily 



MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. ISl 

deceived by outward semblances, think they know a 
round and Tollable thing when they see it, and are con- 
stantly engaging in all sorts of foolish and nnfniitful 
enterprises. In forming ties of friendship, love, and 
matrimony, and in entering into a great variety of 
social relations, yonng people are especially apt to be 
led by mere impulses of perception and conception, 
so-called fancies, wliich are often blind and irrational 
whimseys of the most delusive and pernicious char- 
acter. 

When a fox sees the bait of a trap, there are two 
distinct impulses immediately excited in Eeynard's 
breast — the impulse due to perception, which tempts 
him to seize the tempting morsel, and the impulse due 
to conception, wliich suggests the danger of being 
caught; and his safety depends upon the comparative 
strength of these two impulses. Under such circum- 
stances, a young animal will probably yield to the 
perception impulse, and fall into- the snare: whereas 
an older and wiher fox will most likely be governed 
by the conception impulse, whereby the sense of peril 
overrules the strength of appetite, and will thus escape. 

Feigning death in the presence of danger implies 
not only a clear conception of the impending peril, 
but also a remarkable degree of cunning and self-con- 
trol in evading it. The theory of Prof. Preyer that 
this simulation is simply a state of catalepsy produced 
by the paralyzing effects of fear is wholly inadmissible, 
and will never be accepted by any one who has seen 
an opossum ^' pla^dng 'possum ^' or read Audubon's 
vivid description of such a performance. N'o disciple 
of George Fox ever developed the power of passive re- 
sistance possessed by the opossum. The female 



182 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

didelphys is a heroic mother, and will calmly suffer 
martyrdom for the safety of her offspring. She can 
open at will the pouch in which she keeps her young, 
but no amount of torture can force her to do so. To 
get them out is as difficult as to get a joke into a 
Scotchman's head, and can be effected only by the same 
means — a surgical operation. Hypocrisy (that is, 
'' acting ") is a trait shown by all weak animals in self- 
defence. Dogs are adepts in putting on an air of inno- 
cence when they are fully sensible of having done 
wrong, and in craving pardon by expressions of mingled 
contrition and flattery when their guilt has been de- 
tected and exposed. 

Birds and mammals, which live in flocks and herds, 
post sentinels, when they are feeding or sleeping or en- 
gaged in any perilous enterprise, in order to warn the 
community of the approach of an enemy. Flamingoes, 
wild geese, turkeys, gulls, bustards, crows, ravens, storks, 
prairie hens and prairie dogs, monkeys, zebras, wild 
horses, chamois, beavers, otters, walruses — in short, all 
gregarious animals — have this habit. The sentinels also 
show great discrimination in the discharge of their duty, 
paying no heed to harmless animals like a sheep or a 
cow, but sounding an alarm at the approach of a beast 
of prey or a man. Before migrating to any particular 
place, spies are sent out to ascertain whether the change 
would be desirable or attended with danger. In Siberia 
deputations of squirrels go on such missions, usually 
in August, crossing dreary wastes, swimming rivers, 
and enduring all sorts of hardships until they reach 
the high plateaus of the pine forests. In a few weeks 
they return, report on the prospects of the cone harvest, 
and toward the end of September guide the whole squir- 



MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 183 

rel community to the most favourable spot. The zeal 
of these emissaries in the performance of their task 
is shown by the bruised and blistered condition of their 
feet; and they appreciate the importance of their office 
as fully as did the men whom Moses sent to spy out the 
land of Canaan. 

It is also a curious fact that snipes^ stilts, and other 
birds which frequent the river banks and the seashore 
do not keep sentry themselves, but rely for security on 
the vigilance of the plover, which is quick to signal 
any danger. For the same reason zebras are fond of 
feeding near ostriches, where they are free from all 
anxiety, knowing that the ostriches are always on the 
alert and quick to scent the slightest suspicion of an 
approaching foe. 

That these actions are performed with a full con- 
sciousness of the object to be attained is undeniable, 
and can be explained on no other theory. Stationing 
sentinels indicates not only a high degree of foresight 
and forethought, but also gives evidence of remarkable 
moral qualities, as the expression of individual self- 
sacrifice for the common good, or what in human so- 
cieties would be called public spirit or patriotic senti- 
ment. Sentinels and spies expose their lives for the 
safety of the flock or herd. It makes no" difference 
whether they undertake this service voluntarily or are 
compelled to perform it: the existence of such an office 
marks a high development of the moral sense in the 
perception of the obligations of the individual to the 
community of which he is a member. 

Even cold-blooded sea creatures know how to profit 
by associations of this kind. Little sea crabs seek pro- 
tection in the vicinity of the polyp from their arch- 



184 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

enemy, the squid. In like manner the pilot fish is safe 
from the attacks of the tunny in the neighbourhood 
of the shark. Here it is self-preservation, and not 
friendship, that forms the bond of association. It is the 
same with finches and sparrows, which take refuge from 
falcons in the eyries of eagles. In such cases, the weaker 
animal is protected by the mere presence of the stronger, 
but there is no evidence that the latter derives any ad- 
vantage from the companionship. 

Usually, however, the relation is one of mutual bene- 
fit, as, for example, in what might be called the love 
of the hermit crab for the sea anemone. The hermit 
crab takes up its abode in the abandoned shell of a 
mollusk to which a sea anemone is attached. If it wishes 
to change its habitation, it takes the sea anemone with 
it; or, if it finds a suitable shell without a sea anemone, 
it goes in search of this companion, who both adorns 
and protects its home — adorning it like a flower of rosy 
hue, and protecting it with its mesenteric filaments 
that sting whatever they touch, and thus ward off the 
assaults of fish which would otherwise drag the hermit 
crab from its shell and devour it. In return for this 
kindness the hermit crab provides the sea anemone with 
food. In this union each seeks its self-interest and 
secures its highest good. 

A queer kind of fish is the stargazer, or uranoscope, 
so called because its eyes are on the top of its head and 
are therefore always looking heavenward. On account 
of this sanctimonious look it is also known as the " sea 
parson." This fish, which Hippocrates prized as whole- 
some food, probably because its flesh is especially offen- 
sive, and Konrad Gessner more than two centuries ago 
characterized as "very dreary and dreadful to look 



MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 185 

■upon," lives for tlie most part buried in tlie mire or 
sand, with notliing visible but its staring eyes and ver- 
tical mouth, from which projects a long, cylindrical, 
cartilaginous flap that wriggles like a worm. No sooner 
does one of the fry of little fish that gather round this 
supposed worm bite at it than it is seized by the treach- 
erous flap, and disappears in the pitlike mouth of the 
hidden stargazer. 

Xow, as to the mental process here involved, Schnei- 
der maintains that the stargazer buries itself in the 
slime in obedience to an impulse of perception, stretches 
out its squirming flap in obedience to an impulse of 
conception (i. e., of its prey), and draws it in again with 
the captured minnow in obedience to an impulse of 
sensation, but that it has no consciousness of the pur- 
pose for which it performs all these actions. The natu- 
ralist deems himself justified in this summary treat- 
ment of the psychology of the subject, simply because 
he is dealing with a creature of low organization, and 
is unwilhng to admit that its thoughts can be as his 
thoughts, even when there is a striking resemblance 
in their external acts. The most accomplished angler 
that ever whipped a stream obeys a mere impulse of 
sensation when he hooks his fish, although he may exer- 
cise his reason in resisting this impulse, and not respond 
to every nibble at the bait as an inexperienced fisher 
would do. For aught we know, the stargazer may use 
the same discretion. Ee^^tiles, birds, and mammals of 
many kinds, toads, scorpions, crocodiles, herons, crakes, 
dogs, cats, lions, tigers, and human beings lie in wait 
for their prey. The man is well aware of the purpose 
for which he lurks in ambush, and the same is true of the 
tiger and the cat. Indeed, all the way down in the scale 



186 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

of predatory animals, from the savage to the sea devil 
and the stargazer, there is no point at which the action 
ceases to be conscious and rational, and becomes purely 
sensational and automatic. In the higher organisms 
the higher faculties predominate, and in the lower 
organisms the lower faculties; but in all of them, from 
the highest to the lowest, the action is the resultant 
of impulses of sensation, perception, conception, and 
thought variously combined and inextricably blended. 

A typical illustration of the illogical inferences 
drawn by psychologists as to the mental powers of the 
lower animals is furnished by an interesting experiment 
made by Mr. Amtsberg, of Stralsund, and reported by 
Dr. Mobius to the Society of Natural Science for Schles- 
wig-Holstein, in 1873. A large pike, Avhich was wont to 
devour the small fish in an aquarium, was finally sepa- 
rated from them by a plate of glass, so that, whenever 
he attempted to seize his prey, he struck his snout so 
violently against the transparent barrier as to be quite 
stunned by the blow. ^Nevertheless, he kept up these 
attacks for some time. At length, however, they be- 
came rarer, and finally, after three months of dis- 
heartening efi'ort, ceased altogether. After the lapse 
of six months the glass plate was removed, and the pike 
swam about freely among the other fish without at- 
tempting to eat them. But no sooner was a strange 
fish put into the aquarium than he gobbled it up. 

In the opinion of Dr. Mobius and other scholars 
who have accepted his interpretation of the phenomena, 
the conduct of the pike " was not based on judgment," 
but was the result merely of "the establishment of a 
certain direction of the will in consequence of a series 
of uniformly recurring sensuous impressions." But this 



MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 187 

holds true of all discipline^ and is precisely the process 
by which the judgments of children^ and indeed of the 
great majority of adults, are formed. There are hosts of 
persons who go through life constantly bumping their 
heads against invisible walls and learning wisdom — if 
they learn it at all — only by hard knocks. Very many 
lack even the perception shown by the pike, and do not 
know when a spiritual barrier has been taken away 
and the sphere of their intellectual activity enlarged, 
but continue to move along the line of the old partition 
wall, and never dare to go beyond it. 

In the case of the pike, the glass plate was simply 
the means of inculcating a definite idea; namely, that 
certain fish were not to be eaten. Every blow against 
the unseen barrier was an admonition and injunction on 
this point, and a vigorous enforcement of the lesson 
to be taught, just as a wilful child learns to let forbid- 
den things alone by a smart slap on the fingers. To 
affirm that " the pike acted without reflection,^' or that 
it was " a machine with a soul, which has this advan- 
tage over soulless machines, that it can adapt itself 
to unforeseen circumstances,'' and that "the plate of 
glass was to the organism of the pike one of these un- 
foreseen circumstances," is to make a terrible pother of 
words without sense, and to give an explanation that 
explains nothing. A machine with a soul is a contra- 
diction in terms, since an organism with a soul ceases 
by virtue of this endowment to be a machine. 

'Not was it a " mark of stupidity " that the pike did 
not eat the fish after the plate of glass had been re- 
moved, but rather an indication of docility and dis- 
crimination. The ability to distinguish between the 
fish that were not to be eaten and those that might be 
13 



188 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

eaten shows close observation and the power of com- 
paring objects and discerning their relations and proper- 
ties; and what is this but judgment? A certain associa- 
tion of ideas was established in the pike's mind by the 
intervening plate of glass, just as it may be established 
in a child's mind by an intervening slap. The law of 
mental action is in both cases identical. In the in- 
stance adduced, it required months of discipline to estab- 
lish this association of ideas, but it was so firmly fixed as 
never afterward to be broken. The lesson once learned 
was not forgotten, and in this particular the pike's edu- 
cation was complete. He was trained up in the way 
he should go, and did not depart from it. It is precisely 
in this manner — namely, by threats and blows — that a 
cat is taught not to touch caged birds. The natural- 
ist Lenz tells of an old tabby which, having been thus 
trained, imparted the instruction to her kittens in the 
some way, cuffing them whenever they approached the 
cage with the feline stealth indicative of felonious in- 
tent. 

By an application of the same principle, a horse is 
taught to stop at the word " whoa " ; namely, by attach- 
ing a rein to the animal's foot and pulling the foot 
clear of the ground every time the word " whoa " is 
uttered. The horse is thereby forced to stop, and thus 
learns what " whoa " means, and acts accordingly. It 
is not necessary to suppose that such an absolute con- 
nection is established between the sound " whoa " and 
the pulling of the forefoot from the ground as to make 
the horse think of the act whenever he hears the word. 
If this were the case, the animal, on hearing the word, 
would not only stop, but also lift the forefoot. 
The procedure is purely didactic. The horse learns 



MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 189 

what his master means by " whoa/^ and obeys, but no 
longer thinks of how he came to learn the lesson, any 
more than a man, who in his youth was compelled to 
study Latin by the application of the rod, thinks of " the 
threatening twigs of birch" whenever he reads a Ho- 
ratian ode or a A^irgilian eclogue. 

Few persons have any conception of the pains taken 
by a parent bird to teach her little ones how to get 
their living and to make their way in the world. Thus, 
for example, a mother sparrow may be often seen, at the 
proper season seated with her fledgelings on the ridge 
of a roof and letting a pea, berry, or round piece of 
bread roll down into the eaves-trough. She repeats this 
performance until one of the most precocious and alert 
of the brood takes part in the game, and very soon the 
whole family join in the sport, hopping after the roll- 
ing object and vying with each other in securing it. 
The mother now varies the performance by catching 
the thing before it reaches the gutter. After a time 
the young birds succeed in this more difficult exploit, 
and thus take their first lesson in the art of seizing 
moving objects. C'est le premier pas qui coute. The 
skill acquired in capturing a rolling bread-crumb is 
easily applied to a flying bug. 

The way in which many psychologists talk about 
the mental faculties of animals recalls Heine's interview 
with the old lizard at Lucca. In the discussion which 
ensued, the poet dropped the words ^^I think." 
"Think!" cried the lizard, with a sharp, aristocratic 
tone of profound contempt; "think! which of you 
thinks? For three thousand years, wise sir, I have in- 
vestigated the spiritual functions of animals, and have 
made men and apes the special objects of my study. 



190 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

I have devoted myself to these queer creatures with 
as great zeal and diligence as Lyonnet to his caterpil- 
lars; and, as the result of my researches, I can assure 
you that no man thinks. Now and then something 
occurs to him; and these accidentally occurring some- 
things he calls thoughts, and stringing them together 
he calls thinking. But you can take my word for it, 
no man thinks; no philosopher thinks; neither Schell- 
ing nor Hegel ever thought; and, so far as their philos- 
ophy is concerned, it is mere air and water, like vapours 
in the sky. I have already seen countless successions 
of these clouds floating proudly and securely over my 
head, and the next morning's sun dissolved them into 
their original nothingness. There is, in reality, but 
one true philosophy, and that is engraven in eternal 
hieroglyphics on my own tail.'' This lordly and dis- 
dainful attitude of the venerable saurian toward the 
human race is a witty persiflage of the anthropocentric 
conceit which perverts man's views of his relations to 
the lower animals. 

If a writer, with the critical acumen of Gervinus, 
asserts that the nations of antiquity "took no delight 
in Nature," and Schiller aflirms that " Nature in- 
terested the understanding and excited the curiosity 
of the Greeks, but did not awaken in them any moral 
feeling," if keen thinkers thus fail to get a clear and 
correct appreciation of the mental and emotional ca- 
pacities of their fellow-men in earlier epochs and more 
primitive stages of intellectual development, how much 
more difiicult must it be to analyze and estimate aright 
the psychical phenomena of animal life that lie still 
remoter from our own! 

It is a significant circumstance that metaphysicians 



MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 191 

have never made any valuable contributions to zoopsy- 
chology. This is because they have always discussed 
the mental constitution of animals without having ade- 
quately observed their habits, or have endeavoured to 
make such facts as came within their range of observa- 
tion fit into some preconceived theory, discarding as 
worthless whatever could find no place in the systems 
of thought they were pledged to uphold. Wild specu- 
lation on a small amount of real capital is apt to prove 
as disastrous in the province of philosophy as on the 
stock exchange. 

Aristotle, who was perhaps less liable to this re- 
proach and dealt more with positives than any of his 
contemporaries, maintained, nevertheless, that heart- 
beating is a phenomenon peculiar to man, " because 
he alone is moved by hope and expectation." The pro- 
cess of reasoning which led the Stagirite to this absurd 
conclusion seems to have been something as follows: 
Fearful or pleasurable anticipation causes the heart to 
beat, and this pulsation can occur only where such 
feelings exist. " The lower animals, however, live wholly 
in the present, do not look forward to the future, and 
are not agitated by pleasant or painful presentiments: 
therefore, their hearts do not beat. Such is the vicious 
circle in which the greatest logician and clearest thinker 
of antiquity allowed himself to be caught, through ex- 
cessive confidence in the validity of syllogisms and the 
lack of a little observation. An Athenian boy with a 
bird in his hand would have put him to shame, and 
laughed his logic to scorn. Cassiodorus held that the 
life of the lower animals resides in the blood, whereas 
the anima, or soul, is a principle peculiar to man, and 
distinct from the blood, and based this fanciful theory 



192 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOaY. 

on a false etymology: anima quasi dvai/xa, id est a 
sanguine longe discreta, wliich would identify spirituality 
with aiicemia. 

Lactantiiis, in discussing the origin of error (Inst. 
Div. Lib. II. cap 10)^ makes a still more subtile and 
strained distinction between men and brutes. " For 
we/'' he says, " being a heavenly and immortal race, 
make use of fire, which is given to us as a proof of im- 
mortality, since fire is from heaven; and its nature, in- 
asmuch as it rises upward, contains the principle of life. 
But the lower animals, inasmuch as they are alto- 
gether mortal, make use of water only, which is a cor- 
poreal and earthly element, and because of its unstable 
nature and downward tendency, shows a figure of death. 
Therefore, the cattle do not look up to heaven, nor do 
they entertain religious sentiments, since the use of 
fire is removed from them." Elsewhere in the same 
apology (II. 1) he states as a significant fact that the 
Greeks called man avOpcoirof; because he looks upward. 
It is strange how much stress has been laid upon this 
false etymology (for the word means man-faced, and 
contains no suggestion of looking upward), what far- 
reaching physiological inferences have been drawn from 
it, and for how many centuries poets have not ceased 
to ring changes upon it. Looking upward is, as we 
have already seen, a physiological peculiarity of the 
stargazer and the sea devil, but not of man, who 
naturally looks straightforward, and can look upward, 
as Galen remarked more than sixteen centuries ago, 
only by painfully bending back his head. The goose 
is infinitely his superior in the ease with which it can 
turn its eyes heavenward. 

Yet Ovid says™ 



MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. 193 

Pronaque cum spectent animalia cetera terrain, 
Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri 
Jussit ; et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus. 

Less than a century later Silius Italicns, in his epic of 
the Second Punic War (xv.), amplified the verses of 
his precursor and prototype as follows: 

Nonne vides hominum ut celsos ad sidera vultus, 
Sustulerit Deus, ac sublimia finxerit ora? 
Cum pecudes, volucrumque genus, formasque ferarum, 
Segnem atque obscenam passim stravisset in alvum. 

Eacine repeats the same thought in the lines — 

L'homme 61eve un front noble et regarde les cieux, 

and Milton embodies it in his description of creation 
in still fuller and more poetic form: 

There wanted yet the master- work, the end 
Of all yet done ; a creature who, not prone 
And brute as other creatures, but endued 
With sanctity of Eeason, might erect 
His stature, and upright with front serene 
Govern the rest, self-knowing ; and from thence, 
Magnanimous, to correspond with heaven. 

Cowper sings the same strain: 

Brutes graze the mountain-top with faces prone 
And eyes intent upon the scanty herb 
It yields them, 

as though the hungry savage were any less " intent " 
upon the food with which he gluts his maw. 

Birds not only stand erect, but also, by the power 
of flight, free themselves more than mammals from 
bondage to the earth. " But/' says Steinthal, " how- 
ever high they may soar, they still belong to the earth." 
The same is true of man, however far 



19J: ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

His piercing eyes erect appear to view 
Superior worlds, and look all Nature through. 

The ant is not inferior to the bee in intelligence be- 
cause it crawls on the ground instead of hovering in 
the air. The owl surpasses man in the facility and free- 
dom with which it can turn its head in every direction, 
but this flexibility of its neck does not contribute in 
any degree to the enlargement of its mental horizon. 
Steinthal compares the brute to a piece of cloth fast- 
ened at all four corners to the ground, whereas man is 
like a piece of cloth attached at only two points, so 
that the greater part of it flutters in the air. " The 
influence of this power of free motion," he adds, "in 
promoting the development of intellectuality is incal- 
culable." This rather vulgar comparison of man to a 
flapping sheet, recalling somewhat ludicrously the pos- 
sibility of his being " two sheets in the wind," does 
not illustrate in the least the point in question. 

Man^s superiority of bodily structure and constitu- 
tion in respect to his mental development was very 
succinctly stated by Herbart nearly a century ago, as 
follows: " He has hands; he has speech; he lives 
through a long, helpless childhood." (Er hat Hdnde; 
er hat Sprache; er durchlebt eine lange, hiilftose Kind- 
heit. Werke, vi. p. 206.) The last-mentioned point 
has been taken up and most fully and satisfactorily 
worked out by Mr. John Fiske. Animals without 
hands, or prehensile organs that may by use be con- 
verted into hands, derive no intellectual advantage 
whatever from an upright position. The penguin may 
have the habit of standing erect on its feet and flop- 
ping its quill-less wings for countless generations with- 
out adding in the least to the size or complexity of 



MIND IN MAN AND BRUTE. I95 

its brain. The assumption and permanent maintenance 
of an upright posture marked an epoch in the evolu- 
tion of the human race^ only as contributing to the 
differentiation of the hand from the foot, and to the 
development of the former as an organ of investigation 
instead of a means of locomotion. 

The form and flexibility of the hand and the ex- 
treme delicacy of the sense of touch, especially in the 
tips of the fingers, are the chief sources of man's in- 
tellectual progress, so far as this is dependent upon 
his physical structure. The capability of grasping an 
object with firmness and precision and holding it with 
ease and exactness in a variety of positions not only 
renders possible the use of tools, the acquisition of me- 
chanical skill, and the growth of the arts, but also exerts 
a direct influence upon the intellect by cultivating the 
powers of close observation and intense concentration 
of thought. It is by no means a mere accidental coin- 
cidence that many words used to denote operations of 
the mind are spiritualizations of the functions of the 
hand; as, for example, when we speak of grasping or 
handling a subject, seizing a point, catching an idea, 
and comprehending a proposition. These expressions, 
now employed as simple figures of speech, are records 
of real facts and natural processes in the early educa- 
tional history of mankind, since it was by the frequent 
repetition of the manual action that the higher and 
fuller mental life of the individual was developed and 
the progress of the race promoted. 

The mental and moral value of mechanical labour 
as a discipline for the young is now just beginning to 
be appreciated and to be assigned its proper place in 
pedagogics. The boy who has learned to draw a straight 



196 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

line has learned a lesson in rectitude; and in making 
a box or a table lie builds np his own character, and 
gives it additional symmetry and stability. The in- 
fluences which civilized the race in its infancy are still 
the most efficient agencies in civilizing each individual; 
for, notwithstanding the hereditary transmission of 
culture, as yet every healthy child is born into the world 
more or less a savage. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

PEOGEESS AND PEEFECTIBILITY IN THE LOWEE 
ANIMALS. ' 

Animal and human institutions. Domestic and social life of 
beasts and birds. Bee colonies. Improvements in nest build- 
ing. Architectural skill of ants and termites. Destructive 
energy of the latter. Immense size of their mounds. Artifi- 
cial comb foundation for bees. Perfectibility of the species. 
Effects of specialization in training. Influence of domes- 
tication. Schutz's theory of animals as puppets of higher 
powers. 

What we call institutions are only organized and 
hereditary instincts, and are common to man and the 
lower animals. The original social character of ani- 
mals, which forms the basis of their institutions, is 
also the quality that renders them capable of domes- 
tication. Man simply takes advantage of this quality, 
and turns it to his own account by bringing the ani- 
mal into his own domestic circle and service and mak- 
ing it a member of his household. 

In birds, for example, the conjugal instinct is re- 
markably strong, or, as we would say in speaking of 
human relations, the institution of marriage, either in 
its monogamous or polygamous form, is firmly estab- 
lished and highly developed, and forms the founda- 
tion of a well-ordered domestic and social life. 

197 



198 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

The paternal fox trains his young with as much 
care and conscientiousness as any human father; the 
beaver constructs his habitation with the foresight of a 
military engineer and the skill of an experienced archi- 
tect; the bee lives in well-regulated communities, forms 
states, and founds colonies; and the ant not only cul- 
tivates the soil, plants crops, gathers in the fruits of 
his labour and stores them for future use, and keeps 
other insects as domestic cattle, but shares also the 
vicious propensities and domineering disposition of man, 
waging war on creatures of his own species and holding 
his prisoners as slaves. 

These habits or customs have the same origin and 
character in the lower animals as in man, being in 
both cases products of evolution and undergoing modi- 
fications from generation to generation. Animal, not 
less than human, societies are governed by their laws 
and traditions, and preserve a sort of historical con- 
tinuity by which past and present are bound together 
in a certain orderly sequence. Beehives which suffer 
from over-population rear a new queen and send forth 
with the old one a swarm of emigrants to colonize, 
and the relations of the mother-hive to her colonies are 
known to be much closer and more cordial than those 
which she sustains to apian communities with which 
she has no genetic connection. Here the ties of kin- 
ship are as strong and clearly recognised as they are 
between consanguineous tribes of men. 

Again, the statement that animal habits are fixed, 
and human customs variable and improvable, is true 
only to a very limited extent. Closer observation has 
shown the latter to be more stable and the former more 
mutable than is generally imagined, especially if we 



PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 199 

compare the highest orders of animals with the lowest 
human tribes. In primitive society and among savage 
races customs remain the same for countless genera- 
tions, and seem to be quite as persistent and incapable 
of change as animal instincts. 

Not only do animals, often in the course of a com- 
paratively short period, undergo marvellous transforma- 
tions both of mind and body, through the force of 
natural selection or by careful interbreeding, but they 
are also led by circumstances and through forethought 
to make conscious and intentional changes in their 
manner of life. 

It is curious to note the variety of characteristics 
distinguishing members of the same family or genus. 
Thus, the European cuckoo lays her eggs in the nests 
of other birds, and leads the life of a shiftless parasite 
and shameless polyandrous vagabond. The American 
cuckoo, on the contrary, has not yet learned to shirk 
her maternal duties and domestic responsibilities, but, 
like an honest and thrifty housewife and conscientious 
mother, hatches her own eggs and rears her own young. 
The South African and Australasian representatives of 
the cuculince follow, in this respect, the habits of the 
European bird. There is also a species of molothrus, 
which sometimes begins but seldom finishes a nest, like 
the hypothetical man in the parable, who would fain 
build without first sitting down to count the cost. 
She is seized occasionally with a spasm of virtuous en- 
deavour in this direction, but soon yields to the greater 
comfort and convenience of imposing upon others the 
burden of brooding and nurturing her offspring. Evi- 
dently she turns the matter over in her mind, and, like 
Rousseau, reasons herself into the belief that it is 



200 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOaY. 

better not to assume any family cares, but to cast her 
children as foundlings upon the bosom of public charity. 
" There are the goldfinches, thrushes, fly-catchers, car- 
dinal grossbeaks, and other fussy motherly fowl,^' she 
seems to say, " willing enough to undertake the 
charge; why not gratify their low philoprogenitive pas- 
sion, and thus enable me to devote myself to more 
congenial pursuits! " Still another kind of molothrus 
leads the life of a squatter, never building a nest of 
her own, but brooding in the abandoned nest of some 
other bird. 

Many birds have, within the memory of man, made 
considerable advances in architectural skill, and adopted 
new and improved methods of constructing their nests. 
This progress has been observed especially in the swal- 
lows of California since the settlement of that country, 
and in all cases the young profit from the knowledge ac- 
quired by their parents, and the improvement becomes a 
permanent possession of the race. In places where they 
are particularly exposed to the attacks of pugnacious 
sparrows, they have been known to close the opening in 
front of their nests and make the entrance on the back 
near the wall. In some instances this purely precau- 
tionary and defensive change of structure, after its 
efficiency had been tested in a single nest, has been 
adopted by the swallows of an entire district. Orioles, 
according to the observations of Dr. Abbott, finding 
that the bough from which they have suspended their 
nest is too slight to sustain the weight of the full brood, 
attach it by a long string to the branch above, fasten- 
ing it securely " by a number of turns and a knot." 
It would be difficult to say in what respect the mental 
process leading to the adoption of such a mechanical 



PEOGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 201 

contrivance dilTers from that which causes an architect 
to buttress a weak walL 

The Baltimore oriole also adapts the texture and 
structure of its nest to the exigencies of climate. In 
the Southern States it selects a site on the north side 
of a tree, and builds of Spanish moss loosely put to- 
gether and without lining, so as to permit a free circula- 
tion of air. Farther north it seeks a sunny exposure, 
builds more compactly, and uses some soft material 
for lining. The impulse to build is instinctive, but 
conscious intelligence is exercised in modifying the 
methods of building to suit circumstances. 

The same bird now uses yarn and worsted instead 
of vegetable fibre for its nest, but it always selects for 
this purpose the least conspicuous colours, such as gray 
and drab; and yet the bird's gorgeous plumage is proof, 
according to the theory of sexual attraction, that bright 
colours are pleasing to it. Here we have an example 
of aesthetic pleasure being subordinated to considera- 
tions of safety; the prudent oriole, notwithstanding 
its fondness for resplendent hues, choosing those colours 
which render its nest less visible and more difficult to 
discover, and rejecting those which, in other respects, 
are more gratifying to its fancy. 

The tailor-bird of East India used to stitch the 
leaves of its nest together with fine grass, horsehair, 
and threads, which it twisted out of wool; since the 
introduction of British manufactures it uses sewing 
thread and the filaments of textile fabrics, except in 
remote regions, where the ingenious bird still works 
on in the primitive way. So, too, in America, birds in 
constructing their nests everywhere turn to their ac- 
count the products of human industry and keep abreast 



202 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

with the progress of the age. The materials employed 
correspond to the contemporary state of civilization, 
and mark the periods of industrial development through 
which the human race has passed. The wagtails, in a 
watch-making district of Switzerland, have learned to 
build their nests of line steel shavings; a nest of this 
kind, if preserved, would indicate to the inhabitants 
of that country a thousand years hence the kind of 
industry that was carried on by their ancestors. Spar- 
rows, which usually build in chinks of walls or under 
roofs, if forced to build their nests in trees or other 
unsheltered places, cover them with a sort of hood to 
keep out the rain. Buff on, who records this fact, adds: 
Uinstinct se manifest done ici par un sentiment presque 
raisonne et qui suppose au mains la comparaison de 
deux petites idees. In the presence of such clear mani- 
festations of thought and reflection, it seems absurd 
to speak of a " sentiment almost reasoned," or to in- 
dulge in condescending baby-talk about "two little 
ideas." 

Apiarists now provide their hives with artificial comb 
foundation on which the bees build and are thus re- 
lieved of some of the labour performed by their pred- 
ecessors.* Instead of gathering propolis from the 
buds of plants, the workers stop their hives with the 
mixture of resin and turpentine with which the arbori- 
culturist salves wounded trees, and readily substitute 
oatmeal or the flour of wheat and rye for pollen, if 
they can not easily procure the latter. In countries 
where the flowers blossom late these surrogates are 

* A very superior kind of comb foundation is manufactured by 
Gustav Ad. Friderich in Greifswald, Germany. 



PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 203 

often provided by apiarists and placed before the hives 
in the early spring. In Cuba the bees pillage the sugar 
plantations, and in North Germany, near Stettin, the 
numerous sugar refineries are subject to the same 
depredations. In Barbadoes, where these sources of 
supply are accessible during the whole year, the bees 
gradually cease to gather honey from flowers and ap- 
propriate the products of human industry. They also 
visit cellars, in which kegs of syrup are stored, for the 
same purpose, and indulge in stolen sweets to such ex- 
cess that they fall to the ground and perish, so that 
the apiarists suffer considerable loss. Huber gives an 
interesting account of the manner in which honeybees 
rob bumblebees in times of scarcity, carrying on this 
spoliation systematically for several weeks until noth- 
ing is left.* 

In a work entitled A Modern Bee Farm, Mr. S. 
Simmins describes the " sweating " methods by which 
practical apiarists turn the industrial virtue of bees 
to the best account. Large fields of white clover, 
borage, and sanfoin planted near the hives enable the 
bees to gather honey with the least possible loss of 
time, and it is estimated that seventy-five acres of these 
flowering herbs will occupy one hundred hives profit- 
ably for three months (June, July, and August), and 
produce ten thousand pounds of honey in a single sea- 
son. The triumph of the "sweater's" art, says Mr. 
Simmins, is in inducing the bees to fetch this enormous 
quantity of honey, without neglecting the arrange- 
ments for storing it in the hives. The honey, being 

* See Ludwig Biichner, Aus dem Geistesleben der Thiere, 4th 
ed. Thomas : Leipzig, 1896, pp. 322-324. 
14 



204 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

liquid, must be bottled, and the bees will only put it 
into comb of the exact size and texture, which in- 
stinct has taught them to make. As comb-making is 
much lighter and safer work than honey-gathering, 
with its dangers from storms, wasps, and birds, it 'is 
generally assigned to young bees, while their elders go 
afield. In order that as few bees as possible may remain 
in the hive for this purpose, the bee-keeper provides 
ready-made foundations for the cells, stamped in real 
wax and of the natural size. He also removes the 
combs full of honey, spins them round in a tin churn, 
and replaces them in the hive empty — a hint which 
the bees take as as invitation to refill them. The bees 
seem delighted to make the most of the opportunities 
so thoughtfully provided for them. By using the me- 
chanically stamped " foundations " for their cells, they 
make a more perfect and symmetrical comb than is 
often constructed without help. The bottoms being 
regular, no " crooked comb " is ever built upon it. The 
size stamped is also uniformly that of worker cells; 
thus, there is no room for drone cells, producing bees 
which can not be " sweated " or made profitable in 
any way. Mr. Simmins thinks that the trial of this 
system for another twenty years "may possibly show 
certain strains developing a tendency to forget how to 
construct comb foundation, just as some breeds of fowls 
are forgetting how to hatch their eggs. We can not 
suggest an improvement in the architecture of the cells 
because they are mechanically perfect in economy of 
material -and space. But the readiness with which 
the honeybee has accepted and incorporated in its 
comb the materials supplied by man would seem to 
indicate the possibility of further experiments to de- 



PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 205 

termine how far its mechanical instinct is capable of 
modification/^ It is a mistake to attribute the hexagonal 
structure of the cells to mechanical instinct^ since it is 
due solely to external pressure. The melipona or native 
American bee constructs long and round cells which 
show no approach to the hexagonal form, except when 
they are in close contact, so that the whole is filled 
without interstices. Indeed this is the shape which 
all soft and pliable balls or cylinders take when they 
are pressed uniformly together. Thus, if water be 
poured into a bottle filled with peas, the latter, as 
they swell and press against each other, will gradually 
change from spheres into hexagons. In like manner 
soap bubbles produced by blowing into a basin of 
suds are six-sided so long as they remain in contact, j, 

but become spherical when they float off singly into | 

the air. The originally round cells of the human 
body become hexagonal when pressed together in the 
mucous membrane, in tumours, cancerous formations, 
and other morbid growths. Although bees are re- 
markably conservative, it is evident that their meth- 
ods of work may be considerably modified by human 
agency. 

The facts already mentioned, and many others 
which might be adduced, suffice to prove that animals 
avail themselves of new discoveries and easier methods 
in order to increase the comforts and conveniences of 
life. 

Haeckel asserts that the rude aboriginal ants, which 
lived many thousand years ago, perhaps as early as in 
the Chalk period, had as little idea of the advanced 
division of labour prevailing in the different modern 
ant states as our forefathers of the Stone age had of 



206 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

the culture of the nineteenth century. Both ants and 
men have worked themselves up to their present stage 
of development on the slow and painful path of pro- 
gressive evolution. Even now there are varieties of 
ants which know nothing of the exact and elaborate 
system of division of labour found in civilized formican 
communities, and which bear the same relation to the 
latter that the rude aborigines of Africa and Australia 
do- to the civilized nations of the present day. The 
same is true of the hymenoptera and arachnida, in 
whose habitations there is traceable a process of archi- 
tectural evolution analogous to that which has taken 
place in the history of mankind. This is evident from 
a comparison of the nests of wasps and bumblebees 
and the cells of the native American bee (Melipona) 
with the perfectly formed comb of the European honey- 
bee, or the habits of ordinary earth spiders with those 
of trapdoor spiders. 

Ant hills are very complicated structures. They 
are partly under the earth and partly above it, and con- 
sist often of twenty to forty stories, thus relatively sur- 
passing in size the sky-scraping edifices of modern 
American cities. They are constructed of pieces of 
wood, earth, pebbles, leaves, stems of plants, pine- 
needles, and other materials apparently lying promiscu- 
ously in heaps, but found on closer examination to be 
arranged so as to form halls, corridors, and rooms 
adapted to the wants of the inhabitants. It is also 
curious to note how they make changes in these dwell- 
ings to suit their needs. Sometimes the work of one 
ant will be torn down and rebuilt by others in a differ- 
ent manner after due consultation; thus mistakes are 
corrected and improvements introduced. Interesting 



PHOGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 207 

observations of this kind are recorded in the notebooks 
of Pierre Huber.* 

Still more remarkable as architects are the termites 
or white ants of the tropics; they are also more ad- 
vanced than the emmet in their social and political 
organization. In Africa their habitations begin with a 
series of pyramids about a foot high, which increase in 
size and number with the growth of the community, 
and are finally joined together and covered over with 
a cupola consisting of a firm coating of clay. The fin- 
ished domelike structure often attains the height of 
ten and even twenty feet^, and is made of clay, stones, 
pieces of wood, and similar materials cemented to- 
gether with the mucilaginous spittle of the termites. 
The cone-shaped hillocks resemble haystacks, and at a 
distance are easily mistaken by travellers for the huts 
of the natives. Indeed, at first sight a termite village 
can hardly be distinguished from a negro village. They 
are so solidly built that they not only resist storms and 
the assaults of foes, but also sustain the weight of a 
man and do not yield to the pressure of a heavily laden 
wagon. It is said that gazelles, bufl:aloes, and even ele- 
phants are seen standing on them, and using them as 
points of observation, f 

Some species of termites build in the form of 
truncated columns or gigantic fungi with a round roof 
projecting about two or three inches and resting on a 

* Both Frangois Huber and Darwin have noticed a like liabil- 
ity to error on the part of bees in building comb cells, thus proving 
that they are not always guided by unerring instinct. To err is 
apian as well as human, and the tendency is due in both cases to 
the same cause — namely, fallibility of the reasoning faculties. 

f Biichner, pp. 226-228. 



208 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOaY. 

cylindrical base some four or five feet high. In regions 
subject to inundations their dwellings are constructed 
like barrels round the trunks of dead trees and com- 
municate with the ground by means of corridors or pas- 
sageways bored through the wood. 

Blanchard, in his Eapport sur les Travaux Scien- 
tifiques des Departements en 1868, describes the elab- 
orate interior arrangement of the termite mounds with 
their myriads of rooms, cells, nurseries, storehouses, 
sentry chambers, passages, halls, arcades, and other 
large or small spaces set apart for particular purposes 
and forming parts of a well-considered plan. In the 
centre is what he calls the " royal residence " with a 
high-arched ceiling resembling an old-fashioned oven. 
Here the royal pair dwell, or rather are kept captive, 
since the entrance is so narrow that it is impossible 
for them to go out and in. They are well fed and as- 
siduously served by the workers, but never leave the 
apartment and are virtually prisoners of state, treated 
with respect, like the mysterious man in the iron mask, 
but nevertheless restrained of their liberty. The pro- 
lific queen assumes enormous dimensions, becoming two 
or three thousand times as large as an ordinary termite. 
Adjoining this lying-in room (for such is its essential 
character) are nurseries for rearing the young, chambers 
for servants or attendants of the queen, barracks for 
soldiers, closets or cupboards filled with gums, resin, 
dried juice of plants, seeds, fruits, and other edibles 
or condiments. 

In the centre of the termite mound is a large space 
with passages leading to it from all sides, which, in 
the opinion of Bettzieh-Beta, serves the purpose of a 
forum or place of public meetings, held, as he as- 



PROGEESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 209 

sumes, for the discussion of questions of general in- 
terest. Others maintain that it is intended to promote 
ventilation.* 

Dr. H. Hagen states that some termites, in order to 
get at a sack of meal standing on the floor and effectu- 
ally protected against their direct encroachments, 
gnawed a hole through the ceiling just above the sack 
and built a tube downward through the air until they 
reached the object of their desire. But finding it impos- 
sible to carry the meal up through this straight and 
perpendicular passage, they constructed another by the 
side of it with a spiral ascent like that of the campanile 
of St. Mark^s in Venice. By thus taking advantage 
of the principle of the inclined plane, which plays such 
an important part in modern engineering and road- 
making over mountains, they easily succeeded in secur- 
ing the meal. 

Blanchard also compares these insects to skilful 
engineers, and confirms the observations of other natu- 
ralists as regards the ability with which they design 
and construct tubular bridges from one point to another 
in the form of an arch or succession of arches. In the 
cellar of the prefecture of La Eochelle, in southern 
France, they made hollow columns as large as a thick 
straw from the ceiling to the floor, using them as lines 
of transit and transportation to the upper stories of 
the building. He adds that they always take the short- 
est cut to their destination even when working under- 
ground. They are, therefore, suspected of sending out 
explorers by night, who survey the ground and indicate 
by signs on the surface of the earth the direction of 

* Biichner, p. 229. 



210 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOaY. 

the projected subterranean passage. This supposition 
is regarded by Biichner (p. 236) as highly probable. 

Smeathman describes the effect of making a breach 
in the mound of the termites. Immediately the soldiers 
rush out in the greatest rage in obedience to a signal 
given by a single sentinel or officer, who first appears 
in order to ascertain the nature of the attack. If the 
disturbance is not renewed the soldiers retire and the 
workers reappear and begin to repair the damages, only 
a few of the former remaining stationed here and 
there as a guard. If the mound is again disturbed, the 
workers vanish and the soldiers come out in force. 
There seems to be an exact assignment of duties to 
each class, the workers never fighting and the soldiers 
never working. 

The workers are undeveloped females and the sol- 
diers may be undeveloped males, although this is by no 
means certain. At any rate they are both classified as 
sexless and are both blind, the lack of sight being sup- 
plemented by a delicate sense of touch, which, as they 
live in the dark, serves them better than vision. They 
are distinguished from each other chiefly by the form 
and armament of the head; that of the worker being 
round and smooth and provided with a mouth adapted 
to the elaboration of materials for building purposes, 
while that of the soldier is very large and armed with 
pincers, pikes, or tridents, and long jaws with saws or 
sabres serving as weapons for assault. The proportion 
of soldiers to workers in a mound is about one per cent, 
so that the standing armies are relatively much smaller 
than those which have so often been a burden to Euro- 
pean powers. In other words, ninety-nine hundredths 
of the population devote themselves to industry and 



PKOGEESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 211 

only one hundredth to arms, thus indicating an ad- 
vanced state of termitic civilization. 

The termites are as energetic and ingenious in their 
destructive as in their constructive labours. Perhaps 
the most dangerous of these creatures (at least so far 
as we know) is the Termes lucifugus or light-shunning 
termite, which was introduced into Europe on exotic 
plants imported from Brazil. In southern France, espe- 
cially in La Eochelle, Eochefort, and Bordeaux, they 
have eaten up furniture, caused wooden buildings to 
collapse, and ships of war to fall to pieces. They enter 
the foot of a table through the floor and gradually eat 
out the whole inside of it, so that it has the appearance 
of being perfectly solid when it is only a mere shell, 
which the slightest shock or pressure causes to crumble 
into a heap of dust and splinters. In consuming the 
corks of bottles they always leave a thin layer at the 
lower end sufficient to prevent the wine from flowing 
out and submerging them. In South America, India, 
and Egypt they have been known to destroy whole vil- 
lages and compel the inhabitants to migrate. Curiously 
enough in consuming a house they spare the principal 
pillars, whose destruction would cause the whole build- 
ing to fall; or when they devour the inside of these 
pillars, they fill the hollow with clay, which hardens 
and renders them stronger than ever. This remarkable 
foresight contributes to their self-preservation. But 
how should the insects know on which pillars or col- 
umns the edifice mainly rests? * 

Bastian f states that the cities of the termites in East 



* Cf. Dr. Hagen, cited by Biichner, p. 241. 
f Die Yolker des OestUchen Indiens. 



212 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

India are as tall as a man, some of them being simple 
massive mounds, and others resembling a regular castle 
with battlements, pinnacles, and turrets. In the savan- 
nas of Senegambia in western Africa the countless hills 
of the termites furnish an admirable material, out of 
which the aborigines as well as the canny Scotch mission- 
aries construct their houses. They are also made into 
ovens by being hollowed out and the interior plastered 
with loam. These structures are relatively much larger 
than any reared by man. A pyramid bearing the same 
proportions to the size of its builders would be at least 
three thousand feet high, and a subterranean canal 
would be three hundred feet in the clear. In com- 
parison with them old Eoman and modern American 
edifices and aqueducts are insignificant affairs.* 

Even instincts, which seem firmly rooted and are 
regarded as characteristic of the class, are by no means 
so persistent as is commonly supposed. The individual 
inherits, but soon loses them if they are not brought 
into early exercise. A duck or gosling, if reared in the 
house until it is two or three months old, has no 
greater liking for the water than a chicken, and if 
thrown into a pond will scramble out, showing signs of 
great fear of the element to which its web-feet are par- 
ticularly adapted. An artificially hatched chicken does 
not attach itself to a hen more than to any other animal, 
,but follows its first associate, a child, a cat, or a dog. 

Buff'on denies that animals are susceptible of what 
he calls " the perfectibility of the species." " They are 
to-day," he says, "what they always have been, and 

* For facts and authorities see Biichner's Aus dem Geistesleben 
der Thiere, Leipzig, 1896. 



PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 213 

always will be^ and nothing more; because, as their 
education is purely individual, they can only transmit 
to their young what they themselves have received from 
their parents. Man, on the other hand, inherits the 
culture of ages and gathers and conserves the wisdom 
of successive generations, and may thus profit by every 
advance of the race, and, in turn, aid in perfecting it 
more and more." 

This assertion has been repeated by scientists of the 
old school as though it were an axiom of natural his- 
tory, instead of an arrogant anthropocentric assumption 
refuted by scores of well-authenticated facts. The 
whole process of domestication, which is to the lower 
animals what civilization is to man, and the possibility 
of producing and propagating desirable qualities in the 
race, run counter to Buffon's theory. The value of a 
horse's pedigree depends upon the transmissibility of 
distinctive characteristics which were originally peculiar 
to some individual horse, idiosyncrasies which com- 
mended themselves to man as worthy of preservation, 
or such as in the natural struggle for existence would 
assert and propagate themselves. 

If the descendants of blood-horses do not inherit the 
individual training of their sires, neither are the chil- 
dren of scholars or musicians born with a knowledge 
of books or the ability to play on musical instruments. 
What is inherited in both cases is some particular dis- 
position or endowment, a superior aptitude for the 
things in which their progenitors excelled. Indeed, 
this heritage is handed down in horses with surer and 
steadier increase, or, at least, with smaller loss and 
depreciation than in human beings, since they are 
mated with sole reference to this result; and there is 



^ 



214 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

no room left for the play of personal fancy and caprice, 
or for social, sentimental, or pecuniary considerations, 
which exert a baneful influence upon marriage from a 
physiological point of view, and contribute to the de- 
terioration of the race. This is strikingly perceptible 
in some portions of Europe, where the struggle for 
existence, and especially for high social position, is ex- 
ceedingly intense, and a large dower suffices to cover up 
all mental and physical deficiencies in the bride. 

The scientific swine-breeder keeps genealogical 
tables of his pigs, and is as jealous of any taint in a pure 
porcine strain as any prince of the blood is of plebeian 
contamination. In both cases the vitiation bars succes- 
sion, the one condition of which is purity of lineage. 
It is by the selection not only of the finest stock, but 
also of the choicest individuals for breeding, that ani- 
mals are " progressively improved " both bodily and in- 
tellectually. This is, perhaps, most clearly observable 
in hunting dogs and race horses, which have under- 
gone quite remarkable modifications within the pres- 
ent century owing to the extraordinary pains taken 
to develop and perfect their peculiar characteristics. 
In some instances unusual births or freaks of nature 
are preserved, and by persistently propagating them- 
selves form the starting point of new species. A 
striking example of this perpetuation of individual 
peculiarities is the short-legged and long-backed Ancon 
sheep, a comparatively recent product of Nature ren- 
dered permanent by the care of man. A pointer, grey- 
hound, or collie inherits and transmits to its offspring 
not only race attributes, but also acquired aptitudes 
in the same manner and to the same degree as a human 
being does who is distinguished for some special faculty. 



PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 215 

There are prodigies of dogs which do not beget prodi- 
gies of puppies, just as there are men of genius whose 
children are by no means eminent for their intellectual 
endowments. 

If the conceptual world of the lower animals is 
limited and fragmentary, so is that of savages and of 
ignorant and uncultivated men, who live for the most 
part in the present and the immediate past, and have 
a relatively narrow range of thoughts and experiences. 
Long-lived animals, such as parrots, ravens, and ele- 
phants, have an advantage over short-lived animals in 
the development of intelligence. Civilized man, how- 
ever, not only lives his own individual life, and profits, 
like other animals, from the wisdom of his parents 
and the influences of his environment, but also, by 
means of written records, lives the life of the race, of 
which he enjoys the selectest fruits garnered in history. 

It must also be borne in mind that dogs are and 
always have been bred for special purposes, such as point- 
ing, retrieving, running, watching, and biting, but not 
for general intelligence. Mr. Galton, who calls atten- 
tion to this fact, suggests that it would be interest- 
ing as a psychological experiment to mate the cleverest 
dogs generation after generation, breeding and educat- 
ing them solely for intellectual power and disregarding 
every other consideration. 

In order to carry out this plan to perfection and to 
realize all the possibilities involved in such a compre- 
hensive scheme, it would be necessary to devise some 
system of signs by which dogs would be able to com- 
municate their ideas more fully and more clearly than 
they can do at present, both to each other and to man. 
That the invention of such a language is not impossi- 



216 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

ble is evident from what has been already achieved 
in the training of dogs for exhibition, as well as from 
the extent to which they have learned to understand 
human speech by mere association with man. Prof. 
A. Graham Bell believes that they may be taught to 
pronounce words, and is now making scientific experi- 
ments in this direction. The same opinion was ex- 
pressed two centuries ago by no less an authority than 
Leibnitz, who adduced some startling facts in support 
of it. The value of such a language as a means of en- 
larging the animal's sphere of thought and power of 
conception, and of giving a higher development to its 
intellectual faculties, is incalculable. 

Every dog trained as a hunter or herder is a special- 
ist, and is prized for one fine capacity attained in some 
degree at the expense of mental proportion and sym- 
metry; in miscellaneous matters outside of his province 
he may be easily surpassed by any underbred and mon- 
grel but many-sided village cur. Modern scholarship 
shows a like tendency to psychical alogotrophy or one- 
sided intellectual growth. As science deepens its re- 
searches, each department of investigation becomes 
more distinct, and the toiler in the mines of knowledge 
is forced to confine his labours to a single lode if he 
would exhaust the treasures it contains. He sees clearly 
so far as his lantern casts its rays; but all outside of 
this small luminous circle is dense darkness. 

If a race of superior beings had taken charge of 
man's education for thousands of years and conducted 
it on the same principle as that which has guided us 
in domesticating and utilizing the lower animals, what 
maimed specimens of humanity would have been the 
result! Slavery has always tended to produce this 



PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 217 

effect; but the slave, however degraded his condition, 
speaks the same language as his master, thereby profit- 
ing from his intercourse with those who are placed over 
him, and sharing in the general progress of society 
more fully than any dumb animal could do. 

The influence of domestication on the mental de- 
velopment of animals depends upon the purposes which 
the domesticator has in view. If he regards them mere- 
ly as forms of food, and his sole aim is to increase the 
amount of their adipose tissue and edible substance 
and thus get the maximum of meat out of them, then 
domestication tends to stupefy them. The intellectual 
training of the pig would naturally diminish the quan- 
tity of lard it would produce. So far as man is con- 
cerned, this latter function is the chief end of the 
porker's existence, and it must not be tried and found 
wanting in this respect, whatever may be its mental 
deficiencies. It must be fat-bodied whether it be fat- 
witted or not, and the natural qualities which do not 
contribute to its gross weight and enhance its ultimate 
value as victuals are systematically discouraged and 
depressed. 

In view of the treatment that the pig has received 
for centuries at the hands of man, it is remarkable that 
the animal has retained so much of- it:s original cun- 
ning and love of cleanliness as it now possesses. That 
a creature so fond* of bathing in pure running water 
should be condemned to a filthy sty is an act of uncon- 
scious cruelty discreditable to human discernment. If 
the sow that has been washed returns to her wallow- 
ing in the mire, it is as a last resort in hot weather; she 
would much prefer a clear pond or limpid stream if sho 
could get access to it. 



218 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Being fed and protected by its owner in its domestic 
state, the hog no longer needs to exercise the faculties 
which were essential to the self-preservation of its 
wild progenitors. The stimulus arising from the strug- 
gle for existence ceases, and, as it is reared solely to be 
eaten, its association with man does not call forth any 
new powers. In China and Polynesia, where the dog 
is esteemed chiefly as food, it is a sluggish and stupid 
beast. On the other hand, the pig can be trained to 
hunt, and not only acquires great fondness for the 
sport, but also shows extraordinary sagacity in the pur- 
suit of game. It has an uncommonly keen scent, and 
can be taught to point better than the pointer. Curi- 
ously enough, when the pig is used for hunting pur- 
poses, the dogs, usually so eager for the chase, sullenly 
retire from the field and refuse to associate with their 
bristly competitor in venery. Possibly the hereditary 
and ineradicable enmity between the dog and hog as 
domestic animals may be a survival of the fierce an- 
tipathy which is known to exist between the wolf and 
the wild boar. In Burmah the ringed snake is trained 
for the chase, and is especially serviceable in flushing 
jungle-cock, since the reptile can penetrate the thickest 
underbrush, where it would be impossible for a dog or 
a falcon to go. 

The tamability of an animal is simply its capability 
of adapting itself to new relations in life, and depends 
partly on its mental endowments, but still more upon 
its moral character. It is quite as much a matter of 
temperament and social disposition as of quickness of 
understanding. The elephant, dog, and horse among 
^quadrupeds, the beaver among rodents, and the daw 
and raven among birds, are, for this reason, most easily 



PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 219 

tamed, and sliow the most marked and rapid improve- 
ment in consequence of their daily intercourse with 
man. Intellectual acuteness without the social affec- 
tions and kindred moral qualities rather resists than 
facilitates domestication. Of all domestic animals the 
cat was the most difficult to tame, and it needed the 
patience and persistence so strongly characteristic of 
the ancient Egyptians, sustained by religious supersti- 
tion, in order to accomplish this result. Even now the 
cat, although extremely fond of its home and capable 
of considerable attachment to persons, has never been 
reduced to strict servitude and become the valet of man 
like the dog, but has always remained to a certain 
degree what it originally was, a prowling beast of prey. 

Barking in dogs is a habit due to domestication. 
The wild dog never barks, but only howls, like the 
Himalayan buansu, or merely whines, like the East 
Indian colsum; and the domestic dog reverts from 
barking to howling when it relapses into its primitive 
state. Wagging the tail is another mode of expression 
which the dog has acquired through association with 
man. It is well known, too, that a dog which has been 
reared by a cat adopts many of the habits of its foster- 
mother, such as cleaning itself with its paw; by con- 
tinuously pairing such dogs and rearing them under 
like influences it would be possible to produce a canine 
species with feline traits, which should become perma- 
nent and transmissible. 

A recent writer. Dr. Leopold Schutz, professor in 
the theological seminary at Trier, who may be taken 
as an extreme representative of the old orthodox school 
of zoopsyehologists, maintains that animals do not 
think, reflect, form purposes, or act with premeditation 
15 



\/ 



220 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

of any kind;, have no freedom, no choice, no emotional 
or intellectual life of their own, but that a higher power 
performs all these operations through them as cunning 
pieces of mechanism. The bird sings, according to this 
theory, without any personal pleasure or participation 
in its song; it sings at a certain time and can not help 
it, nor is it able to sing at any other time. The living 
cuckoo is as automatic as the wooden cuckoo of a 
Black Forest clock, and under the same mechanical 
compulsion to sing its song when the appointed hour 
arrives. Altum, in his book on bird life (Der Vogel 
und sein Leben, Miinster, 1868), infers from the fact 
that a bird sings more in the pairing season than at 
other seasons of the year, that its song is a " natural 
necessity," in which it takes no individual pleasure. 
But this conclusion by no means follows from the 
premises. The song is a means to an end, and has for 
its final object sexual attraction and selection. One 
would surely not be justified in inferring that a woman 
who dresses well, chiefly in order to gratify her husband 
or her lover, finds no individual aesthetic satisfaction 
in a fine gown; or that a man goes a-wooing from 
" natural necessity," and gets no entertainment out of 
courtship. 

Prof. Schutz's doctrine that animals are mere pup- 
pets, whose movements are determined by the direct 
intervention of higher powers, seems to have been 
derived from what is recorded of the relations of these 
creatures to holy men in the legends of the saints, 
rather than from a scientific study of the book of 
Nature; his point of view is not that of the zoopsy- 
chologist, but that of the hagiologist. 

The chief difficulty attending the investigation of 



PROGRESS AND PERFECTIBILITY. 221 

mental processes in animals is that tliey can not express 
themselves in human language and explain to us their 
thoughts and feelings and the motives underlying their 
conduct. We are thus liable to misinterpret their 
actions and deny them many endowments which they 
really possess, just as the first explorers of new countries 
fail to discover in savages ideas and conceptions which 
are afterward found to characterize them in a remark- 
able degree. 

We have happily rid ourselves somewhat of the 
ethnocentric prepossessions which led the Greeks, and 
still lead the Chinese, to regard all other peoples as 
outside barbarians; but our perceptions are still ob- 
scured by anthropocentric prejudice which prevents 
us from fully appreciating the intelligence of the lower 
animals and recognising any psychical analogy between 
these humble kinsmen and our exalted selves. 



CHAPTER YII. 

IDEATIOIT IN ANIMALS AND MEN". 

Prantl's doctrine of " time sense " as a specifically human endow- 
ment. Weakness of this theory. Examples of time sense in 
animals. Their social instincts and moral sentiments. Stand- 
ard of animal virtue according to Spinoza. Animal herd and 
savage tribe. Criminal procedure of animals against delin- 
quent members of the herd or flock. Civic life of ants and 
bees. Anarchism and barbarism in the hives. Depraving in- 
fluence of alcohol on bees. Agricultural ants. African driver 
ants. "Cattle-lifting" ants. Formican slaveholders. Vol- 
ume of brain in hymenoptera. Long and helpless infancy of 
ants. Altruism in animals. Dr. McCook on honey ants. 
Darwin's experiment. Use of tools by animals. Mechanical 
skill of trapdoor spiders. Elephants as dam builders. Use 
of implements by crows and cormorants. Wine-making apes 
in China. Monkeys as miners. Use of fire as an index of civ- 
ilization. The logical faculty in monkeys. The soko as a hu- 
morist. Idea of personal property in animals. 

The late Prof, von Prantl * takes the ground that 
the lower animals are endowed with moral and intel- 
lectual faculties, but adds : " They are destitute of any 
logical apprehension and power of abstraction; for 
while they comprehend objects and their optical, acous- 

* In a paper on Reform gedanken zur Logik, read before the 
Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and printed in its Proceed- 
ings for March 6, 1875. 

222 



I 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 223 

tic, and other efficient qualities in a certain abiding 
manner, they have no conception of substance or at- 
tribute, of coexistence or succession. Animals perceive 
also an actual causal connection, and are therefore 
capable of drawing causative conclusions, reasoning 
forward and backward, from cause to effect and from 
effect to cause, but not capable of a logical deduction; 
they seek a cause, but not a logical ground or reason, 
and are, by virtue of such endowment, wary and cau- 
tious, but without foresight " (behutsam und vorsichtig, 
aber ohne VoraussicU). In other words, " animals think 
without logic, but not therefore illogically." 

Again, " in order to formulate precisely the distinc- 
tion between man and beast," he sums up this differ- 
ence in the succinct statement, " man has time-sense.'' 
Beasts have " space-sense," or the " sensual perception 
of expansive being," but not " time-sense; that is to say, 
the brain activity of man is competent to comprehend 
also pure succession as such, and the pure intensity of 
occurrence in general." 

In proof of this proposition Prantl states that " man 
can count." Even without the use of names or numerals 
" he can fix the succession of days by marks, or ex- 
press the number of objects lying before him gesticula- 
tively with his fingers." This " sense of continuity, 
denied to the whole world of lower animals," ren- 
ders man " conscious of being the same in a later 
as in a former time," and thus endows him with " im- 
mutable ego-consciousness, or Kant's transcendental 
apperception." It enables him to look before and 
after, to bind together the past and the future, and thus 
to create law and order, domestic, social, and political 
institutions, ethics, art, religion, science, and history. 



224 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

and to make external things serve his purposes and 
supply his wants. " Man, and man only, fabricates 
weapons and tools, kindles fire, plants seeds in the earth, 
and is alone capable of self-renunciation and suicide.'^ 
" By virtue of this continuity of his self-consciousness 
and his look into the future, he transforms the realities 
around him and makes them minister to his ideals/^ 
The sole and ultimate source of all these higher de- 
velopments and ideal acquisitions of humanity, individ- 
ual, social, political, industrial, and artistic, is to be 
sought in " the far-reaching and fundamental postulate 
that man is endowed with time-sense." 

For this reason man alone is able to distinguish 
between the subjective and the objective, to conceive 
of the subject as an object, and to apprehend mathe- 
matical truths and relations, which are purely ideal, as 
real. " It would be ridiculous to ascribe mathematics 
to animals; nevertheless the labours of the bee and 
of the spider excite astonishment; but inasmuch as, 
with genuinely animal limitations, they always appear 
in a definite geometrical form, they show that they are 
not products of spontaneous mathematical thinking." 

Prantl also denies that expressions of sorrow, re- 
morse, or gratitude on the ipart of animals furnish any 
evidence that they act under the impulse of moral ideas, 
but interprets them as having reference to their own 
well-being or comfort. To talk of the " art-instinct of 
animals " is, he thinks, a mere confusion of terms, 
" since we demand of art that it shall realize an idea." 
Still, after all his metaphysical distinctions, he admits 
that the essential nature of man as distinguished from 
that of the beast is " only the result of a progressive 
upward evolution." If this conclusion be correct, and 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 225 

it is all that the most advanced zoopsychologist has ever 
claimed, then the distances {Abstdnde) between man 
and beast are not imiDassable, and even " human speech " 
{die menschliche Sprache) is but a higher development of 
" animal utterance " {die thierische Kundgebung). 

The weak point of these speculations concerning 
the mental powers of animals is that they are too ex- 
clusively metaphysical, constituting a logical and sys- 
tematic exposition of conceptions or notions without 
that accurate and exhaustive observation of facts which 
no acuteness of analysis and no vigorous process of 
pure thinking can supply. Not only is Prantl ignorant 
of the habits and aptitudes of animals, denying them 
capacities which they are known to possess, but he is 
liable to an opposite error, equally fatal to his theories, 
in his tendency to ascribe to the human race as a 
whole faculties which are characteristic of man only 
in a high state of civilization. He ignores the savage 
and the boor^ and compares beasts with the most culti- 
vated and most highly developed human beings, over- 
looking the long period which man existed on the earth 
before he even learned how to chip flints. 

As to the " ideal-sense," upon which Prantl lays 
peculiar stress, there are low tribes in which it is wholly 
wanting, and which are as destitute of historical annals 
as any herd of apes. How much knowledge of the past 
may be transmitted from generation to generation by 
tradition in a community of monkeys it is impossible 
to determine. The amount of information thus pre- 
served and accumulated in simian hordes is probably 
very small and exceedingly vague, since even human 
hordes, not native to the countries they inhabit, soon 
lose all recollection of the early migrations of their 



226 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

ancestors, and all traditions concerning the cradle of 
their race. This is why savages always regard them- 
selves as autochthones, even in cases in which it can be 
clearly proved that they are not aboriginal to the soil, 
and that their immigration is of comparatively recent 
date. 

There is no reason to believe that " time-sense," 
which Prantl claims to be the exclusive attribute of man, 
and from which he derives the superior mental evolu- 
tion and equipment of the human race, is wholly lack- 
ing in the lower animals. Every creature endowed 
with personal consciousness and memory must know 
that it is the same being to-day that it was yesterday, 
or, in other words, that it exists in time. The pos- 
session of this knowledge does not imply the possi- 
bility of indulging in philosophical reflections about 
it any more than the possession of thoughts necessarily 
involves the power of thinking about thoughts, al- 
though it would be rash to afhrm that animals may not 
be capable of giving themselves up to meditation by re- 
calling mental impressions and making them objects 
of thought. 

Time-sense is very highly developed in domestic 
fowls and many wild birds, as well as in dogs, horses, 
and other mammals, which keep an accurate account 
of days of the week and hours of the day, and have, 
at least, a limited idea of numerical succession and 
logical sequence. A Polish artist, residing in Eome, 
had an exceedingly intelligent and faithful terrier, 
which, as he was obliged to go on a journey, he left 
with a friend, to whom the dog was strt)ngly attached. 
Day and night the terrier went to the station to meet 
every train, carefully observing and remembering the 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 227 

time of their arrival, and never missing one. Mean- 
while he became so depressed that he refused to eat, 
and would have died of starvation, if the friend had 
not telegraphed to his master to return at once if he 
wished to find the animal alive. Here we have a strik- 
ing exhibition of time-sense as well as an example of 
all-absorbing affection and self-renunciation likely to 
result in suicide. 

Love, gratitude, devotion, the sense of duty, and 
the spirit of self-sacrifice are proverbially strong in 
dogs, and only a " hard-shell " metaphysician, who 
neither knows nor cares an}H;hing about them, would 
venture to deny them all moral qualities, and to assert 
that they are governed solely by a regard for their own 
individual well-being. There are also many apparently 
well-authenticated instances of animals deliberately tak- 
ing their own lives; and without too credulously accept- 
ing anecdotes of this sort, in which it is difficult to de- 
termine whether the creature was a felo-de-se or the 
victim of an accident, there is no pyschological reason 
for rejecting them as old wives' fables. 

Scorpions and serpents are especially prone to sting 
themselves to death when kept in close confinement. 
Some naturalists maintain that these creatures grow 
crazy before committing the fatal act; but it is difficult 
to determine whether the wounds are self-infiicted for 
the purpose of putting an end to their existence or are 
the result of attempts to defend themselves against an 
imaginary enemy. Mr. Holden, of the Lick Observatory, 
reports the case of a rattlesnake, which, after several 
unsuccessful efforts to escape from captivity, bit itself 
to death "in a most deliberate manner." He is con- 
vinced that the suicide was intentional. 



228 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

According to Spinoza, benevolence in animals con- 
sists in the exercise of friendly feelings toward their 
kind, and this is all that we have a right to demand 
of them. A good cat, for example, is a cat that is good 
to her kittens, however crnel she may be to birds and 
mice. Indeed, her goodness, from a feline as well as 
from a human point of view, is in direct proportion 
to her destructiveness of the smaller rodents. A like 
standard of virtue prevails among low races of men, 
and constitutes the highest ideal of tribal ethics. The 
best man among barbarians is the one who is most 
terrible to their foes, and can put the greatest number 
of them to death in the shortest time. Such manifesta- 
tions of love of kin and love of country are only en- 
largements of self-love; and it is a long way from this 
primitive form of egotism to universal philanthropy, 
and to the still broader benevolence which Buddhism 
inculcates toward all sentient creatures. One is in- 
clined to pardon the gruff cynicism of Dr. Johnson 
in denouncing patriotism as " the last refuge of scoun- 
drels," when one sees how much individual selfishness 
finds a covert under this fine-sounding word, and what 
fierceness of interdynastic and international strife it 
is made to provoke and to palliate. 

Not only the social instincts, but also the moral 
sentiments growing out of social relations, are common 
to man and to beast. It is evident that germs of moral 
ideas and perceptions of moral obligations enter into the 
conjugal unions of beasts, and impart a certain stability 
and sacredness to these ties. Many animals are strict 
monogamists, and have thus attained what Aryan civ- 
ilization now generally accepts as the highest and purest 
form of sexual affection and association. With beasts, 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 229 

too, as with men, it is the male which scruples least at 
trangressing the monogamous principle, and makes light 
of this breach of fidelity, treating it as a pardonable 
peccadillo. 

The mandarin duck is proverbial for conjugal faith- 
fulness, and the Chinese are accustomed to carry a 
pair of these fowls in bridal processions, as an emblem 
of connubial love and an example of constancy for the 
newly wedded couple. Canaries are also characterized 
by the same virtue, and the attempt to force them into 
bigamy by keeping one male and two females in the 
same cage is uniformly destructive of domestic bliss, 
and frequently fatal to the young. Jealousies are quite 
sure to arise in consequence of a preference of the male 
for one of his mates; and the consort that feels ag- 
grieved by marital neglect will take every opportunity 
to avenge herself by pecking and pestering her favoured 
rival, and destroying her nest with its contents of eggs 
or callow brood. Even the young which are reared 
under such circumstances are far inferior in beauty 
and vigour, as well as in numbers, to the offspring of 
a peaceful monogamous canary household. 

Whether the family may be the originary nucleus of 
the tribe, or, as is more probable, may have been de- 
veloped through a process of differentiation out of a 
primitive community, whose members lived in sexual 
promiscuity,* the impulse to herd, as well as the pur- 
poses it subserves, are the same in savages and in 
beasts. Wolves hunt in packs; cattle, horses, and sheep 



* We may state that Westermarck, in The History of Human 
Marriage, takes a different view, but does not settle the question 
definitely. 



230 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

unite for mutual protection; and this tendency remains 
even after their domestication, when it is- no longer 
essential to their safety, and becomes, as in man, a 
purely social feeling. Birds of passage assemble for 
their annual or semiannual migrations, and separate 
into families as soon as they have reached their destina- 
tion; still preserving, however, their larger and laxer 
social organization as " birds of a feather," which en- 
ables them to " flock together " again with facility, 
whenever the general interest requires united action 
of any kind. This sense of community is especially 
strong in rooks and storks, which seem to have a regular 
system of government, by means of which they enforce 
discipline, reproving and correcting deviations from 
their common standard of rectitude, and even inflicting 
capital punishment for certain transgressions. In 
such cases the family ceases to exercise jurisdiction 
over its own members, and recognises the superior penal 
authority of the commonwealth. 

The instances recorded of animals holding courts 
of justice and laying penalties upon offenders are too 
numerous and well authenticated to admit of any doubt. 
This kind of criminal procedure has been observed 
particularly among rooks, ravens, storks, flamingoes, 
martins, sparrows, and occasionally among some gre- 
garious quadrupeds. It is as clearly established as 
human testimony can establish anything that these 
creatures have a lively sense of what is lawful or allow- 
able in the conduct of the individual, so far as it may 
affect the character of the flock or herd, and are quick 
to resent and punish any act of a single member that 
may disgrace or injure the community to which he 
belongs. 



IDEATION m ANIMALS AND MEN. 231 

Sometimes an irascible husband may take the law 
into his own hands, and summarily avenge himself 
on a faithless wife and her guilty paramour without 
bringing the case before a general assembly of his kind. 
Usually, however, it is the whole body which, after 
due deliberation, pronounces and executes judgment 
and maintains the majesty of the law. The penalty 
does not always involve the forfeiture of life, but varies 
in rigour according to the turpitude of the offence; 
the culprit being often condemned to a severe castiga- 
tion, after which he resumes his position in society 
a sadder and wiser member of it. 

A general assembly of storks was held on June 25, 
1896, on the meadows of Enzheim in Lower Alsatia, 
and remained in session more than forty-eight hours. 
On the first day there were one hundred and ninety-two 
storks present, and on the second day one hundred and 
eighty-nine. It was evidently a very lively conference 
and their chatter could be heard at a great distance, 
but there was nothing to indicate whether the meet- 
ing was simply a social reunion or whether the delibera- 
tions were of a judicial or political character. At any 
rate, it was not accidental, and clearly had some definite 
purpose in view. 

Dr. Edmonson states that the hooded crows in the 
Shetland Islands hold regular assizes at stated periods, 
and usually in the same place. When there is a full 
docket, a week or more is spent in trying the cases; at 
other times, a single day suffices for the judicial pro- 
ceedings. The capitally condemned are killed on the 
spot. 

The owner of a house near Berlin found a single 
egg in the nest of a pair of storks, built on the chimney. 



232 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOaY. 

and substituted for it a goose's egg^ which in due time 
was hatched;, and produced a gosling instead of the 
expected storkling. The male bird was thrown into 
the greatest excitement by this event, and finally flew 
away. The female, however, remained on the nest, 
and continued to care for the changeling as though it 
were her own offspring. On the morning of the fourth 
day the male reappeared accompanied by nearly five 
hundred storks, which held a mass meeting in an ad- 
jacent field. The assembly, we are informed, was ad- 
dressed by several speakers, each orator posting himself 
on the same spot before beginning his harangue. These 
deliberations and discussions occupied nearly the entire 
forenoon, when suddenly the meeting broke up, and 
all the storks pounced upon the unfortunate female 
and her supposititious young one, killed them both, 
and, after destroying the polluted nest, took wing and 
departed, and were never seen there again. 

It happens occasionally that the confidence of the 
male stork in the virtue of his spouse is too strong to 
be shaken even by the presence of such questionable 
progeny; or, if he suspects her of frailty, he deems 
it best to condone the fault. They then unite in ex- 
terminating the bastard brood, and prudently keep the 
mysterious episode of ciconian domestic life to them- 
selves. 

Prof. Carl Vogt tells the story of a pair of storks 
which had lived together for many years in a village 
near Soletta. One day, while the male was absent. pro- 
viding for his family, a younger suitor appeared, and 
began to pay court to the wife. She received his ad- 
dresses at first with indifference; but as the woman 
who hesitates is lost, so she finally fell into the snares 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 233 

of her passionate and persistent adorer. His visits 
became more frequent, and at last he succeeded in so 
completely fascinating the matron that she was per- 
suaded to accompany him to a marshy meadow, where 
her unsuspecting husband was engaged in catching 
frogs, and to join her gay paramour in putting the old 
stork to death. 

A similar case occurred .recently in north Germany. 
A pair of storks had had their nest on the roof of a 
barn for several seasons, without any apparent discord 
in their domestic relations. Suddenly, early in the 
spring, a powerful male stork made his appearance, 
and violently attacked the husband, who bravely de- 
fended himself; his spouse, strangely enough, taking 
no part in the fray. The assailant withdrew toward 
evening, his feathers dappled with blood, but renewed 
the attack on the following morning. The proprietor 
of the estate on which the scene took place resolved 
to interfere and shoot the intruder, but unfortunately 
aimed at the wrong bird and killed the husband. After 
this mishap, the female remained quietly perched on 
the roof by the side of the stranger, with whom she 
soon began to chatter in a very lively manner. The 
talk continued for about an hour, when both storks, 
as with one accord, fell upon the nest, threw out the 
eggs, tore it in pieces, and, after gazing for a moment 
on the ruins, rose together into the air, and, mount- 
ing in ever higher circles, vanished from view. Here 
the wife was at least accessory to the crime after its 
commission, and her conduct during the combat would 
seem to indicate that the strange stork was her accepted 
: lover, and his coming preconcerted. Such occurrences, 
however, are exceptional. As a rule, storks are distin- 



234 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

guished for conjugal fidelity no less than for their 
superior intelligence and the strong ties of affection 
which they form for human beings. 

Eavens also have been known to destroy a nest in 
which a young owl had been discovered, and to kill 
both the birds whose home had thus suffered contamina- 
tion, being evidently determined that the ancient and 
honourable race of Corvus corax should not be cor- 
rupted; and cocks, in several cases, are said to have 
killed hens which had hatched the eggs of ducks or par- 
tridges. One would hardly suspect such susceptibili- 
ties in a polygamous fowl, and least of all in our sultan 
of the barnyard, who guards his harem with the fierce 
jealousy of a Turk, but bears his paternal responsibili- 
ties very lightly, leaving the brooding mothers and 
their young for the most part to shift for themselves. 

An unusally large number of ravens was recently 
observed on the trees in the Treptow Park of Berlin. 
They began to assemble about noon and continued to 
arrive from all points of the compass until three o'clock. 
After croaking together in loud tones for some time, 
they all pounced upon one bird sitting apart on a lower 
limb and belaboured it with their strong beaks until 
it was covered with blood and fell dead to the ground. 
Thereupon they all flew away in different directions. 
It is evident that this corvine convention was precon- 
certed, and that the purpose of it was to punish a guilty 
member of the community; but it was only after a 
thorough discussion of the matter that the sentence of 
death was passed upon the culprit and immediately 
executed. 

0. Fliigel, in his volume Das Seelenleben der Thiere 
(page 52), admits the truth of the stories about storks. 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 235 

but doubts whether their conduct under the circum- 
stances has been correctly interpreted. " How do we 
know," he asks, " that the female stork is put to death 
as a punishment for adultery? . . . Perhaps she was 
sick and therefore unable to resist the suit of the male 
stork, and was killed because she was sick, as often 
happens in such cases. Perhaps, too, she was suffering, 
not exactly from a disease, but from a bodily ab- 
normity." It is quite as difficult to imagine storks 
congregating for diagnostic as for judicial purposes. 
A ciconian medical consultation is not less marvellous 
and incredible than a ciconian court of justice. The 
assumption that she was physically infirm, instead of 
being a frail creature from a moral point of view, does 
not simplify the matter or render the proceedings of 
the storks more intelligible. If we begin to indulge 
in hypotheses of this sort, we may as well suppose that 
she was acting under the influence of hypnotic sug- 
gestion or some other irresistible form of fascination. 

Indeed, in another passage (page 59), Flligel intro- 
duces hypnotism as a means of explaining actions on 
the part of animals, which might be far more satis- 
factorily explained by simply assuming that they are 
capable of practising deceit. Thus the opossum seeks 
to escape danger by feigning death, and the partridge 
pretends to be lame aiad limps off in an opposite direc- 
tion in order to attract the attention of the pursuer 
to herself, and thus divert it from her young. " Per- 
haps," says Flligel, "fear makes the fowl really lame 
and throws the quadruped into an actual spasm or 
kind of hypnotic state." It is very queer that no 
amount of peril and terror should make the par- 
tridge go lame except when her young are with her; 
16 



236 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

and any one who has hunted opossums knows that in 
feigning death they show no symptoms of paralysis, 
but remain perfectly warm and limp, breathing natu- 
rally, though scarcely perceptibly. Herr Fliigel is 
determined not to concede to the lower animals the 
exercise of rational faculties, and in order to avoid this 
necessity does not hesitate to give rein to the wildest 
conjectures. 

As we have already seen, the impulses and motives 
which lead to the commission of crime are essentially 
the same in beasts and in man, and students of 
penal jurisprudence are just beginning to learn that the 
psychology of criminality in civilized society can never 
be fully understood except by a careful scientific study 
of it not only in savages, but also in the lower animals. 
The incentives to deeds of violence are pretty much 
the same in both. Many actions, such as the killing of 
deformed or sickly infants and of old and infirm in- 
dividuals, are common to barbarians and to beasts, and 
are regarded as right because they contribute to the 
collective strength and consequent safety of the tribe 
or herd; but with the civilization of man and the do- 
mestication of the brute this precaution is no longer 
needed, and the primitive practice is abandoned. Mice 
take excellent care of their aged, blind, or otherwise 
helpless kin, concealing them in safe places and pro- 
viding them with food. It must be remembered, how- 
ever, that the mouse has lived in a semidomestic state 
as the companion of man from time immemorial. 

In the development and organization of social and 
civic life the bee and the ant hold the foremost place 
among articulates, corresponding to that of man among 
vertebrates. They stand respectively at the head of 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 237 

their class, and represent the highest point attained 
by insect and mammal in the process of evolution. As 
regards form of government, it is a mistake to speak 
of the bee state as a monarchy; it is, on the contrary, 
the most radical of republics, or rather a democracy 
of the most rigorous kind, with absolute power vested 
in the working class. The claims of '* labour '' to the 
exercise of supreme control in political affairs are here 
fully recognised and practically realized. The so-called 
queen is really the mother of the hive; her functions 
are maternal rather than regal. If she may be said 
to reign in a certain sense, the workers rule, deciding 
all questions and performing all acts affecting the com- 
mon weal. The existence of but a single queen leaves 
no room for those dynastic enmities and rivalries which 
have so often disturbed the peace of human empires, 
and inflicted such untold misery upon mankind. If 
perchance two queens are produced at the same time, 
instead of forming factions in the state and exciting 
civil war, they contend personally for sovereignty, until 
one of them is killed. Sometimes the workers inter- 
vene, and put the less desirable of the claimants to 
death; or if the hive is populous and circumstances are 
favourable, a portion of the inmates swarm and carry 
off one of the contestants to found a new colony. In 
all these operations the queen initiates nothing; she 
is a passive instrument in the hands of the workers, 
whose decisions she accepts, but does not influence in 
the slightest degree. There is no "blue blood" in 
her veins except such as may be produced by a process 
of pampering; she is simply a worker, taken in a larval 
state and fattened into regal favour and function by 
what Huber calls " royal treatment; " that is, by reliev- 



238 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

ing her from all toil and supplying her with richer 
nutriment, li, on account of bad weather or for any 
other reason^ the bees do not wish to swarm, they do not 
hesitate to throw all superfluous members of the royal 
family out of the hive. The institution of appanage 
is unknown to apian communities. But, in order to 
provide for emergencies, several larvae are reared each 
in a single cell, which the old queen is never permitted 
to approach, since she is as jealous of these royal scions 
as was ever Persian padishah of his next of kin. For 
this reason they are kept in close confinement until 
they are needed. 

The conjugal relation of the queen to the drones 
is polyandrous. " Her male harem,'' says Biichner, " is 
larger than the female harem of any Oriental despot, 
and consists often of six to eight hundred drones, who 
are for the most part utterly useless members of the 
community, since a single drone suffices to impregnate 
the queen, and the drones neither work nor are they 
armed with stings with which to defend the hive. They 
constitute a sort of hereditary peerage, letting them- 
selves be served by the industrious workers and con- 
tributing nothing directly to the promotion of the 
common weal, but leading a lazy and comfortable life 
of leisure and pleasure from May to August, free from 
care and from toil, and doubtless with no presentiment 
of the fearful fate awaiting them in the autumn of 
their existence." This superfluity of drones, so opposed 
to the wise economy of E'ature, is regarded by Biichner 
as the survival of a period when the bees lived in small, 
independent colonies and the drones, as they flew 
abroad a-wooing, were exposed to greater dangers than 
at present. The gathering of bees into hives under 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 239 

the care of man has entirely changed this condition 
of things^ and thus left an excess of drones far above 
the number necessary to the propagation of the race. 

Doubtless the queen has certain constitutional 
rights, but they are very limited. She is in the condition 
of Queen Victoria with Mr. Gladstone as prime minis- 
ter: she is not asked what ought to be done, but is 
simply told what the cabinet intends to do, and is ex- 
pected to indorse it, whether agreeable to her feelings 
or not. But this relation does not prevent a strong 
sentiment of loyalty toward her on the part of the 
workers, who are ready to defend her at the risk of 
their own lives. 

On the other hand, they do not show the slightest 
affection for the males, or drones, who are in the un- 
enviable position of prince consorts, or mere propaga- 
tors of the race. No provision is made for them when 
the winter supplies of food are laid in; they fulfil their 
mission in summer, flying abroad on wedding tours with 
the queens of various hives and enjoying their honey- 
moon; but with the early frosts they are thrust out 
of the hives, and perish of hunger and cold. Mean- 
while the queens preserve the sperm in a sac, and use 
it at pleasure for fecundating the eggs; as the fecun- 
dated eggs produce females and the unfecundated males, 
the numerical relation of the sexes can be easily regu- 
lated. The workers, or neuters, are really females, 
whose sexual organs remain rudimentary because all 
their energies are absorbed in labour. The ovary is 
only partially formed, and they are incapable of laying 
eggs; but it needs only a course of " royal treatment," 
consisting of luxury and idleness, to develop any of the 
larvae into queens. It is asserted that workers do some- 



24:0 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

times, though rarely, lay eggs; but this capability im- 
plies some degree of development beyond the condition 
of a " neuter " in the strict sense of the term, a change 
which might easily escape the eye of the "practical 
apiarist/' who is usually less interested in the habits 
of bees than in the market price of honey. The queen 
has no heirs, either apparent or presumptive, and no 
right of succession is recognised. Any larviform worker 
can be metamorphosed into a queen, as every Ameri- 
can schoolboy is a possible President of the United 
States. 

That this perfect social and industrial organization, 
in which the principle of the division of labour is so ad- 
mirably applied and a career opened to every talent, is 
the result of gradual growth and evolution is evident 
from the more primitive habits of other hymenoptera, 
such as wasps, hornets, and bumblebees. Tame honey- 
bees also differ greatly in this respect from wild ones, 
and are known to have changed their manner of life 
and to have improved their methods of work to a con- 
siderable extent within the memory of man. A Ger- 
man writer states that when the European bee was im- 
ported to Australia, after a few years' experience of 
perpetual summer, it ceased to lay up winter stores of 
honey, making only what it wanted to eat from day 
to day. This fact, less edifying to the practical apiarist 
than instructive to the zoopsychologist, furnishes the 
basis of Eosegger's charming tale and socialistic satire 
of anarchism in the hives. Here we have an example 
of radical changes in the habits of bees within the 
memory of the present generation as the result of new 
climatic conditions and the modifying influence of en- 
vironment. This phenomenon is wholly inconsistent 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 241 

with the assumption of an innate and irresistible labour 
instinct. 

Populous and powerful bee communities sometimes 
relapse into barbarism, renounce the life of peaceful in- 
dustry for which they have become proverbial, acquire 
predatory habits, and roam about the country as free- 
booters, plundering the smaller and weaker hives, and 
subsisting on the spoils. These brigand bees seldom 
reform: if they busily "improve each shining hour," 
it is not to " gather honey all the day from every open- 
ing flower," but to range the fields in looting parties, 
and ransack the homes of honest honey-makers. Wey- 
gandt (in the periodical Die Biene, 1877, No. 1, cited 
by Biichner: Aus dem Geistesleben der Thiere, p. 
322) describes the evolution and exploits of these 
"milking bees," as he calls them, and shows how the 
successful 'raid of a few individual filibusters soon con- 
verts the whole hive into a lawless band of depredators, 
who live by plunder. Against these anarchists of apian 
society and other foes the honeybees often fortify their 
hives, barricading the entrance by a thick wall, with 
bastions, casemates, and deep, narrow gateways. When 
there seems to be no immediate danger of hostile at- 
tack, these defensive works, which seriously interfere 
with the ordinary industrial life of the hive, are re- 
moved, and not rebuilt until there is fresh occasion for 
alarm. Jesse (Gleanings in Natural History, i., 21) 
states that the bees of one of his hives built a regular- 
ly constructed fortress wall before the entrance, in 
order to defend themselves more effectually against 
the raids of wasps, and adds that a small number of bees 
were thereby enabled to ward off these foes. The Swiss 
naturalist Huber, who began to publish his observa- 



242 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 



tions on tlie habits of bees more than a century ago 
and is generally recognised as a high authority, noticed 
that his bees erected a wall against the inroads of the 
death's-head moth in the spring of 1804:, bnt removed 
it in the spring of 1805, in which year no moths of this 
kind were seen. In 1807, when the moths reappeared 
in considerable numbers, the bees again fortified the 
entrance and kept it in a state of defence till 1808. 
These barricades were made of propolis. Biichner 
(page 308) records other cases of a similar character in 
Hungary, where the death's-head moth {Sphinx atropos) 
frequently molests the hives. The common bee {Apis 
mellifica) not only rifles the nest of the bumblebee 
{Borribus), but numbers of them often surround one of 
the latter and force him to give up the sacs of honey 
he has gathered. The clumsy and not very courageous 
bumblebee submits to the demands of these highway- 
men, surrenders his treasure without much ado, and 
then flies afield in search of more. 

Biichner states that honest and industrious bees 
degenerate into vagabonds and robbers through the use 
of alcohol. If they are fed with a mixture of honey 
and brand)^, they become passionately fond of it, get 
habitually drunk and disorderly, and gradually cease 
to work. The pangs of hunger, the penalty of one vice, 
drive them into another, and they take to theft and free- 
bootery, as men do under similar circumstances. In- 
stinct is not strong enough to resist the depraving in- 
fluence of intoxicating liquors and save them from a 
downward career of demoralization and criminality. 

According to recent observations made by Mr. Law- 
son Tait, wasps get drunk on the juice of plums, grapes, 
and other fruits, which is converted into alcohol by the 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 243 

process of decay. "While in a state of intoxication, their 
sting is uncommonly venomous and produces the symp- 
toms of nerve poisoning. The wasps become so ad- 
dicted to this fermented juice that they take to it again 
as soon as they have slept off their drunkenness, and 
thus pass in rapid succession from one paroxysm of in- 
ebriety to another. Hens, too, which have access to 
the refuse of distilleries, soon become habitual drunk- 
ards, stop la}dng eggs, and show no desire to rear broods 
of chickens. In December, 1896, an owner of poultry 
in England brought a suit for damages against the 
proprietor of a distillery, because owing to the corrup- 
tion of a neighbouring stream his fowls had become 
hopeless inebriates and thereby wholly worthless. 

It is undeniable that, in the hfe of the honeybee, 
a sort of historical connection exists between the 
mother-hive and her colonies. This sense of kinship 
extends to the colonies of colonies, and thus gives rise 
to something ]ike international relations between a 
large number of apian communities, which share the 
friendships and the hatreds of the original stock and 
transmit them to their posterity. Lenz relates his own 
experience on this point. Six of his hives were blown 
down by the wind; he hastened to set them up again, 
but the bees, rushing out and seeing him thus engaged, 
regarded him as the cause of the disaster, and stung 
him. For years afterward they pursued him whenever 
he approached their hives, and this unjust antipathy 
was inherited by all the swarms vrhich issued from these 
hives and founded colonies elsewhere. 

Here we have a striking instance of hereditary 
enmity, such as often characterizes families, tribes, and 
clans, and takes the form of the vendetta. The bees 



24:4 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

that had suffered the supposed wrong never forget it, 
and communicated their feehngs to their descendants 
by way of tradition.* 

In order to test the intelHgence and foresight of 
bees Huber put them into a hive with a glass floor and a 
glass ceiling. It is well known that bees have great 
difficulty in building their cells on glass on account 
of its smooth surface, and avoid doing so if possible. 
In the present case they began to build their comb, 
not from the top or the bottom, as usual, but on one of 
the perpendicular sides over toward the opposite wall, 
but before they had reached it Huber substituted for 
it a glass plate. The result was that they ceased build- 
ing in that direction, and, turning at a right angle, 
extended their comb to the other wooden side and 
fastened it there. They did not wait until they had 
come in contact with the glass before changing their 
plan, but foresaw and avoided the difficulty in the man- 
ner described. 

PrantPs assertion that animals do not plant seeds 
in the earth and raise crops is merely one of many 
a priori deductions from his assumption that they lack 
time-sense, and therefore can have no appreciation of 
the succession of seasons. All facts opposed to this 
inference he would treat with a sceptical shrug of the 
shoulders, or relegate with an incredulous smile to the 
realm of fable. Nevertheless it is only by the care- 
ful observation and critical sifting of facts that such 
questions can be decided. 

It has now been ascertained beyond a doubt that in 

* Cf. Wundt, Vorlesungen iiber die Menschen- und Thierseele, 
ii, 196-200. Also article Bees in Encyclopsedia Britannica. 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 245 

Texas and South America, as well as in southern 
Europe, India, and Africa, there are ants which not 
only have a military organization and wage systematic 
warfare, but also keep slaves and carry on agricultural 
pursuits. Mneteen species of ants with these habits 
have been already discovered, and their modes of life 
more or less fully described. 

Nearly half a century ago Dr. Linsecom began his 
studies of the Texan agricultural ant (Atta malefaciens), 
and after devoting some fourteen years to this subject 
communicated the results of his researches to Mr. Dar- 
win, who embodied them in a paper read before the 
Linnean Society of London, April 18, 1861. This ant, 
he informs us, " dwells in what may be termed paved 
cities, and, hke a thrifty, diligent, provident farmer, 
makes suitable and timely arrangements for the chang- 
ing seasons. ... It bores a hole, around which it 
raises the surface three and sometimes six inches, form- 
ing a low circular mound having a very gentle inclina- 
tion from the centre to the outer border, which, on an 
average, is three or four feet from the entrance. On low, 
flat, wet land, liable to inundation, though the ground 
may be perfectly dry at the time when the ant sets to 
work, it nevertheless elevates the mound in the form 
of a pretty sharp cone to the height of fifteen to twenty 
inches or more, and makes the entrance near the sum- 
mit. Around this mound, in either case, the ant clears 
the ground of all obstructions, and levels and smooths 
the surface to the distance of three or four feet from 
the gate of the city, giving it the appearance of a hand- 
some pavement, as it really is. TVithin this paved area 
not a blade of amiihing is allowed to grow, except a 
single species of grain-bearing grass. Having planted 



216 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

this crop in a circle around, and two or three feet from 
the centre of the monnd, the insect tends and cultivates 
it with constant care; cutting away all other grasses 
and weeds that may spring up among it, and all around 
outside the farm circle to the extent of one or two feet 
or more. The cultivated grass grows luxuriantly, and 
produces a heavy crop of small, white, flinty seeds, 
which under the microscope very closely resemble ordi- 
nary rice. When ripe, it is carefully harvested, and car- 
ried by the workers, chaff and all,* into the granary 
cells, where it is divested of the chaff and packed 
away. The chaff is taken out and thrown beyond the 
limits of the paved area. During protracted wet 
w^eather, it sometimes happens that the provision stores 
become damp, and are liable to sprout and spoil. In 
this case, on the first fine day, the ants bring out the 
damp and damaged grain, and expose it to the sun 
till it is dry, when they carry back and' pack away all 
the sound seeds, leaving those that had sprouted to 
waste." They also check the tendency of the seeds to 
germinate by biting off the incipient sprouts, treat- 
ing them as a farmer does his potatoes or onions under 
similar circumstances. 

In pasture lands, the grass cultivated by the ants is 
liable to be cropped by cattle, and thus prevented from 
bearing seeds and producing a harvest. In order to 
avert such a disaster, the ants avoid the meadows, which 
are given up to grazing, and establish themselves' in the 
fence corners of cultivated fields, along garden walks 
or near gateways, or in other protected places, where 
their crops run the least risk of being destroyed. 

These observations, the truth of which is amply 
confirmed by other writers, as, for example, by Dr. 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 247 

Henry C. MeCook in The Agricultural Ants of Texas, 
are a complete refutation of PrantFs zoopsychology; 
for no husbandman ever showed greater skill in adapt- 
ing himself to circumstances, or manifested a higher 
degree of intelligence and foresight in conducting his 
agricultural operations, and in consulting for this pur- 
pose the nature of the soil and the variety of the sea- 
sons, than are exhibited by these marvellous insects. 

Indeed, nearly all the institutions and gradations 
of culture and civilization which the human race has 
passed through, and of which we find survivals among 
the different tribes of men, exist also among ants. Be- 
sides the tillers of the soil just mentioned, there are 
other species, like the Peruvian cazadores, which still 
lead a nomadic life, having no permanent homes, but 
wandering from place to place; entering the houses 
of the natives by millions; killing rats, mice, snakes, 
and all sorts of vermin; devouring offal; and perform- 
ing in general the useful functions of itinerant scaven- 
gers. On the approach of these hordes the inhabitants 
quit their dwellings, and do not return until the in- 
vading host has passed on. Dr. Hans Meyer, in an 
account of his ascent of the Kilima-Njaro, in equatorial 
Africa, states that his camp was one night attacked 
by an army of driver ants, and had to be abandoned. 
He describes the army as divided into three distinct 
classes, or castes, superior officers, underofficers, and 
the rank and file, each of which is provided with 
mandibles of different size and efiiciency as weapons, 
and corresponding with the duties they have to per- 
form. Other ants have advanced beyond this nomadic 
life of pillage, and have acquired fixed habitations; 
they do not cultivate the soil, but keep herds of aphides, 



24:8 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

or plant lice, which yield them a milky substance, and 
are also slaughtered for food. 

The desire to get possession of these aphides is often 
the occasion of fierce raids of one community of ants 
upon another, forcibly recalling the cattle-lifting forays 
of Scotch clans, once so common on the northern border 
of England. A recent observer, Mr. James Weir, Jr., 
gives a graphic description of a predatory incursion of 
this kind made by an army of black ants {Lasius niger) 
into the domain of some yellow ants {Lasius flavus), 
whose herd of aphides was feeding under guard. The 
invading myrmidons " were marching in full battle 
array, with a skirmish line in advance. They came 
on with a rush, as if they intended a surprise. Some 
outposts, or pickets, of Lasius flavus discovered them 
when ten or twelve feet away from the town of Lasius 
flavus. These pickets raced home and gave the alarm. 
Immediately the inhabitants poured out and arranged 
themselves in front of their beloved herd. Skirmishers 
were thrown out and soon met the advancing Lasius 
niger. In a few moments the battle was on, and it was 
a battle to the death. The Lasius niger outnumbered 
the Lasius flavus three to one. As near as I could 
reckon there were about fifteen hundred of the blacks 
and about five hundred of the yellow ants. The 
yellow ants were larger and stronger, but the blacks 
were more agile. The yellow Lasius rushed at her 
enemy with open mandibles, and seizing her by the 
middle, crushed her through and through. The black 
Lasius endeavoured to get behind her enemy and then 
seize her by one of her legs. If she succeeded in her 
attempt, no bulldog ever held on with greater tenacity. 
As soon as possible another black ant would come to 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 249 

her assistance, and mounting on the back of the yellow 
ant would begin at once to gnaw through the thoracic 
wall. In a few seconds the shell would be eaten 
through, the vitals would be reached, and the yellow 
ant would sink down in the struggle of death. Not 
until certain that she was dead would Lasius niger, 
who had her by the leg, loosen her hold. Lasius niger, 
in this foray, came in light marching order. They 
carried no commissariat department, no ambulance 
corps. Lasius flavus, on the contrary, had both. When 
wearied or wounded the yellow ants would drop to the 
rear and communicate their wants. The ambulance 
corps dressed their wounds with their tongues; the 
commissariat refreshed them by regurgitating food into 
their open jaws. All through the battle I noticed this 
wonderful power of intelligent communication. Lasius 
flavus sent repeatedly back to the town to bring out the 
stragglers. It was like a well-ordered battle between 
human beings. These ants acted as though governed 
by an intelligence analogous to that which directs the 
actions of men. In the end, Lasius niger won the vic- 
tory, but not until they had killed every Lasius flavus, 
and lost two thirds of their own number. The sur- 
vivors carried off the bone of contention, the herd of 
aphides, to their own nest, some fifty feet away." 

The slaveholding ants are of several kinds, and 
differ greatly in the manner in which they treat their 
vassals. Some make them do all the work under the 
direction of overseers; others share their labours; while 
still others have fallen into such habits of luxury as to 
be unable or unwilling to wait upon or even to feed 
themselves, and are carried about and provided with 
food by their body servants. In many cases this 



250 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

sybaritism is the mere ostentatious love of being served. 
The incapacity is not physical^ bnt moral, and arises 
from an aristocratic aversion to any kind of menial 
labour, from the pleasure of being served by a train 
of obsequious attendants, and the notion that it is more 
dignified and distinguished to be borne along and to 
have food put into their mouths than to walk on their 
own legs and to help themselves to victuals; since 
these apparently so helpless ants are agile and ener- 
getic enough as warriors, when it is a question of con- 
quering and plundering their peaceful neighbours. It 
is the false sense of honour, fostered by the military 
spirit, which takes pride in brandishing a sword and, 
on the slightest provocation, plunging it into the vitals 
of a fellow-man, but would deem it a deep disgrace 
for an officer to brush his own clothes or black his 
own boots. 

Sometimes, in consequence of severe exactions, the 
slaves rise in revolt, and are mercilessly put to death; 
and formican like old Eoman law seems to recognise 
the right of the master to inffict summary capital pun- 
ishment in such cases. This power is often exercised 
by the red-bearded ant {Formica rubibarbis), who is a 
fierce slaveholder, and as pitiless in suppressing mutiny 
as was Barbarossa after the siege of Milan. 

Ants differ in quickness of apprehension and in 
ingenuity quite as much as men do. Some with which 
Sir John Lubbock experimented, when cut off from 
their supply of food by the removal of a little strip of 
paper which had served as a bridge over a chasm a 
third of an inch in breadth, did not know enough to 
replace it. In similar cases, ants have been observed 
bringing straws from a distance for the express pur- 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 251 

pose of bridging chasms that separated them from a 
desirable article of food. Bridges for this purpose are 
often an inch long, and made of mortar or cement con- 
sisting of a mixture of fine sand with a salivary secre- 
tion. 

In a monastery near Botzen, in the Tyrol, one of 
the monks put some pounded sugar, together with a 
few ants taken from an ant hill in the garden, into an 
old inkstand, which he suspended by a string from 
the crosspiece of his window. Yery soon the ants 
began to carry the sugar along the string to their home 
in the garden, and returned with many others that 
went to work in the same way. After two days, al- 
though the greater part of the sugar was still in the 
inkstand, no ants were seen on the string; and, on 
closer examination, it was found that about a dozen of 
them were in the inkstand, busily engaged in throwing 
the sugar down upon the window sill below, where 
others were carrying it off to the hill. They thus saved 
themselves the trouble of climbing the whole length 
of the window and down the string into the inkstand 
and back again with their burdens, and avoided by 
this means an immense expenditure of strength and loss 
of time. This change in the plan of operations shows 
remarkable powers of observation and reflection, and 
was doubtless suggested by some of the more thought- 
ful and practical members of the community, and, after 
being communicated to the others, was adopted by 
them. 

The intelligence of h3rmenoptera (ants and bees), 
like that of human beings, depends upon the develop- 
ment of the nervous system, and especially upon the 
size and striicture of the brain. According to the tables 
17 



252 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

published by Dr. Vitus Graber, the cerebrum of the 
bee's brain is -^ and the cerebellum y^Yo P^^^ ^^ i'ts 
body, while the corresponding portions of the ant's 
brain are -gi'o ^^^-eio" ^^ ^^® ^i^e of the whole body. On 
the other hand, the brain of the May bug forms -3-^0 
and that of the water beetle only -^q-q part of its body. 
These fractions express approximately the relative men- 
tal capacity of each of the aforesaid insects, and the 
proportion is nearly the same as that existing between 
man and the larger mammals, such as the horse and the 
ox. The brain of the ant is, on an average, about one 
quarter the size of an ordinary pin's head, although 
it differs with different species. It is, doubtless, as 
Darwin has observed, the most marvellous physical 
atom in any living organism, not even excepting the 
brain of man, and shows what an amount of mental 
activity and energy may emanate from an exceedingly 
minute particle of nerve substance or be concentrated 
in the smallest ganglion. But the superior intelligence 
of ants, bees, and other hymenoptera living in highly 
organized communities, is due not only to the greater 
relative size, but still more to the complicated forma- 
tion and composition of the brain, which is divided 
into two hemispheres, and differs from that of all other 
insects in its pedunculate character. The effects of 
injuries to the brain of an ant are analogous to those 
caused by injuries to the human brain: spasms, stupe- 
faction, nervous prostration, the substitution of in- 
definite reflex action for voluntary movements of the 
body, raving madness, etc., according to the parts af- 
fected. Such phenomena have been often observed as 
the results of wounds received in battle, or in defend- 
ing the larvse or nymphs against the attempts of preda- 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 253 

tory Amazon ants to capture tliem. It is a curious and 
significant fact, too, that the babyhood of the ant is 
relatively quite as long as that of man, and during this 
plastic period of infancy the young of the genus 
Formica are quite as helpless and dependent upon the 
fostering care of their elders as are the young of the 
genus Homo. " The larvae," says Biichner, " are occa- 
sionally sorted and divided into different groups, ac- 
cording to their age and size, so that one is involuntarily 
reminded of a school with distribution of the pupils 
into classes." " Nothing is more attractive," observes 
Blanchard, "than the incessant care of the ants for 
their larvae. They keep them perfectly clean by rub- 
bing and brushing them with their labial feelers, carry 
them in the morning to the upper stories of the nest, 
where it is warmer, and take them below again later in 
the day in order to escape the scorching rays of the mid- 
day sun. This transportation occurs as often as atmos- 
pheric changes and variations of the temperature require 
it. The soft bodies of the larvae are borne between the 
firm jaws of the ants, but no injury or accident has ever 
been noticed; they are never bruised or wounded or 
hit against the hard walls." After reaching a certain 
stage of growth, during the course of the summer or 
sometimes not until the following spring, the larvae spin 
themselves into so-called pupae or chrysalides, popularly 
but falsely supposed to be ant's eggs and much in quest 
as food for caged birds. These pupae or nymphs do not 
require feeding, but are nevertheless solicitously looked 
after by the working ants, licked, cleaned, carried about, 
and on fine days exposed to the air and light in front 
of the nest. When the sun gets too hot the attendants 
summon the workers, who carry the large, white, un- 



254 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

shapely things back into the nest just as a cat carries 
her kittens. As soon as the pupse have developed into 
ants they try to free themselves from their fibrous in- 
casement, but seldom succeed without the aid of the 
workers^ who unloose the web with their jaws and draw 
the young out of their place of confinement. After 
their release the skin, which still covers them like a 
shirt, is removed and their process of education begins. 
They are conducted through the nest and shown how 
to work. At first light tasks are assigned to them, such 
as taking care of larvae, just as in human families older 
children are made to look after the infants. It is easy 
to distinguish the young ants from the old ones by 
their lighter colour, and thus to observe their actions. 
In a short time, however, generally in three or four 
days, they are fitted to perform the duties of a full- 
grown ant. 

"What Solomon says of the ants, that they have " no 
guide, overseer, or ruler " (Prov. vi, 7), is confirmed 
by modern entomologists, at least in its application to 
the ordinary species. JSTo one ant seems to command 
the others, and Huber affirms that even the slaves 
are not subject to the slightest compulsion. " It is 
the consciousness of duty alone that preserves order 
and secures diligence." Forel asserts that the allusion 
to chiefs made by some writers (e. g., Ebrard) is " a 
mere figment of the imagination." If the larger and 
stronger ants take the lead in marching against foes, 
this prominence is due to their greater energy and effi- 
ciency as fighters and does not imply any other supe- 
riority. Even the warriors, who in some European and 
nearly all tropical species of ants appear to form a dis- 
tinct caste, " never play an imperious part, but only 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 255 

serve the commonwealth." Under such circumstances 
a coup d'etat or other arrogation of sovereignty by a 
successful soldier would be impossible.* 

As regards moral attributes, says Dr. McCook in 
his work on the honey ants : " I am much inclined to 
the view that anything like individual benevolence, as 
distinguished from tribal or communal benevolence, 
does not exist. The apparent special cases of benefi- 
cence, outside the instinctive actions which lie within 
the lines of formicary routine, are so rare and so 
doubtful as to their cause that, however loath, I must 
decide against anything like a personal benevolent char- 
acter on the part of my honey ants." f 

It is often quite impossible to determine whether 
human actions arise from public spirit or private feel- 
ing; and an attempt to fathom the motives of ants, 
and to decide whether they are animated by a love of 
their kind and a desire to promote the general weal, 
or by a special good will toward individuals and what 
we call personal kindness, is attended with equal dif- 
ficulty. But what the author affirms of honey ants is 
also true of savages, whose benevolence is tribal rather 
than personal; even civilized man, with rare excep- 
tions, moves in the same narrow traditional rut, and 
is swayed in all his sentiments by national prejudices 
and prepossessions. The feeling of kinship is never-, 
theless especially strong in ants, and is not weakened 
by long absence. Mr. Darwin shut several of them 
in a bottle with asafcetida, and then released them. 
and brought them back to their colony. At first their 

* Cf. Biichner, pp. 54-57, 75-81. 

f The Honey Ants of the Garden of the Gods, and the Occi- 
dent Ants of the American Plains, page 45. 



256 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

fellow-ants threatened to attack them and thrust them 
out, bnt soon recognised them under their offensive 
disguise^ and received them with evident marks of af- 
fection. Still, no one would be justified in asserting 
that the elements of individual love and personal 
preference do not also enter into these relations. There 
is no doubt that strong attachments are formed between 
animals, and that they are capable of emotions of pity 
and acts of generosity not only toward their own kind, 
but even toward creatures of another species. A gen- 
tleman who had a great number of doves used to feed 
them near the barn; at such times not only chickens 
and sparrows, but also rats, were accustomed to come 
and share the meal. One day he saw a large rat fill 
its cheeks with kernels of corn and run to the coach- 
house, repeating this performance several times. On 
going thither he found a lame dove eating the corn 
which the rat had brought. Such an action on the 
part of human beings would be looked upon as a 
charitable desire to relieve the necessities of a helpless 
cripple, and every one would be satisfied with this 
simple explanation; but as a rat is assumed to be in- 
capable of similar feelings, its conduct is regarded as 
the resultant of a series of impulses of sensation, per- 
ception, and conception, under which the animal is 
led to do wonderful things in an automatic way, with- 
out any consciousness of the purpose for which it does 
them; and thus a moral virtue is obscured and wholly 
hidden from view by a mass of metaphysical jargon. 

A writer in the Eevue d^ Anthropologic relates the 
following story: The owner of a vegetable garden was 
surprised at the mysterious disappearance of carrots 
from a basket and asked the gardener what had become 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 257 

of them. The latter replied that he did not know, but 
would try to discover the thief. He accordingly hid 
behind the hedge, and had not waited long before the 
house dog came and carried off a carrot toward the 
stable, giving it to one of the horses, and wagging his 
tail with delight as his equine friend consumed it. The 
gardener was angry and, seizing a stick, was about to 
punish the pilferer for his excessive and rather eccen- 
tric exhibition of generosity, but the owner prevented 
him and secretly watched the dog, who continued to 
run to and fro between the garden and the stall until 
the entire stock of carrots was exhausted. Mean- 
while the dog never bestowed a look, much less a carrot, 
on the horse in the next stall, who would have gladly 
eaten a share of the stolen fodder. Here we have a 
marked instance of altruistic sentiment manifesting 
itself in faithful friendship and even gross favouritism. 
That the lower animals are capable of feeling compas- 
sion and exercising charity toward creatures of their 
own or of other species is proved by numerous and 
well-authenticated examples of cats and dogs carr}ing 
food to other cats and dogs that were utter strangers to 
them, but were evidently suffering from hunger. In 
such cases the act of kindness does not even have its 
source in personal attachment, but springs solely from 
the purer fountain of pity and disinterested benevo- 
lence, and contains hardly a trace of what Spencer calls 
" ego-altruistic sentiment," self-gratification being wholly 
merged in the gratification of others. 

Again the ability to use tools and to wield weapons, 
which Prantl derives from the possession of time-sense, 
is not exclusively human. Ants build bridges with 
splinters of wood, small pebbles, grains of sand, and 



258 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

other available materials, and tunnel small streams, 
and their skill in performing snch feats of engineering 
and in meeting any emergencies that may arise is al- 
most incredible ; but the testimony of Bates and Bar 
and other naturalists leaves no doubt as to the reality 
of these achievements. They also make a clever and 
effective use of implements in capturing and killing 
the ferocious sand hornet, which they seize by the legs 
and fasten to the ground by means of sticks and stones, 
and then devour at their leisure. Here we have an 
unmistakable instance of the use of instruments for 
the accomplishment of a particular purpose. The 
same is true of the ant-lion when it prepares a pitfall 
and lies in wait for its prey, just as any hunter would do. 
According to Moggridge, the antennae of the trap- 
door spider (Mygale fodiens) are provided with a kind of 
rake, and the feet have prongs resembling the teeth of 
a comb. With the help of these instruments it digs 
subterranean tunnels or galleries, which it tapestries 
with a very fine silken web. The door, which closes 
the entrance, is very ingeniously constructed out of 
earth, woven firmly together with cobwebs. This door 
is very thick and broader above than below, so as to fit 
into the hole as a cork does into the mouth of a bottle. 
Its upper surface has the same colour as the surround- 
ing earth, and it is therefore not easily discoverable. The 
hinge is made out of quite thick and firm fibres of silk, 
and the lock consists of a series of small holes in which 
the spider can stick its claws and hold the door fast, 
from the inside. In going out the spider lets the door 
fall to, and lifts it up again in order to re-enter. This 
subterranean habitation, says Moggridge, is as far su- 
perior to that of the ordinary earth spider as the Mont 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 259 

Cenis tunnel is to a common ditch. Erber, who studied 
the habits of the trapdoor spiders on the island of Tinos 
in the Grecian Archipelago, saw them spread nets 
after dark before their doors in order to catch night 
moths. In the morning these nets were removed. He 
also speaks of the marvellous skill and adaptation to 
circumstances with which they repair any injuries done 
to the doors or snares.* 

Mr. Eomanes seems to think that the only tool-using 
vertebrates are apes and elephants, but such a restric- 
tion is hardly justified by facts. The following inci- 
dent, which is vouched for by Mr. William B. Smith, 
on whose farm at Mount Lookout it occurred, proves 
that an ass may understand the worth of weapons, and 
be able to avail himself of them. A donkey, which 
was in the same pasture with an Alderney bull, was 
frequently attacked by the latter, and worsted in the 
combat. Convinced that his heels were no match for 
his adversary's horns, the ass took a pole between his 
teeth, and, whirling it about, whacked his assailant 
so vigorously over the head that the latter was finally 
glad to give up the contest, and lived thenceforth on a 
peaceful footing with his long-eared and long-headed 
companion. 

Cats and dogs open doors by pressing the latchkey, 
or cause them to be opened by pulling the bell cord or 
lifting the knocker ; and every farmer knows, to his 
frequent vexation, how readily cows familiarize them- 
selves with the mechanism of gates. 

Schlagintweit states that in India wild elephants 

* Yerhandlungen der k. k. zoologisch-botanischen Gesellschaft. 
Wien., Bd. xviii, pp. 905, 906. 



260 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOaY. 

build walls of sand and stones across the dry beds of 
rivers^ in order to keep the water from flowing off dur- 
ing the rainy season, so as to have a sufficient supply 
in times of drought. The native inhabitants do the 
same ; but whether the elephants or the Hindus were 
the original builders of these dams is not recorded. 
If such constructions , imply forethought and mechan- 
ical skill on the part of man, they presume the existence 
of the same faculties to an equal degree in the animal. 

Crows, cormorants, gulls, and other birds carry 
shellfish into the air and drop them on rocks, in order 
to break their hard covering and to eat the flesh. If 
the first fall is not sufficient, they carry it up still 
higher, and thus virtually hit it a harder blow. If a 
boy cracks a nut by hurling it against a stone, he makes 
use of the stone as a tool as truly as if he should take a 
stone in his hand and strike the nut with it. The for- 
mer process is that employed by the birds, which are 
in this respect tool-using animals. There are rocks 
on the seacoast which have served generations of birds 
as stationary hammers for smashing mollusks, and are 
evidently regarded by them as a permanent slaughter- 
house. 

It is well known that monkeys living near the sea- 
shore, where the ebb tide leaves the rocks covered with 
oysters, evince extraordinary expertness in opening 
these bivalves with sharp stones, just as a man would 
do under like circumstances. It would require only a 
very slight increase of intelligence for a monkey to 
learn to break a stone into proper shape, instead of 
selecting a suitable one from the shingle of the beach, 
and, by thus fabricating a tool, bring himself abreast, 
intellectually, with the flint-clipping man of the 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 261 

early Stone age. Indeed, it lias been suggested by 
some scientists that man had not yet appeared upon 
the earth in the Miocene age, and that the chipped 
flints of that period are the work of semihuman pithe- 
coid apes of superior intelligence ; and there is nothing 
in the theory of evolution or the facts of natural his- 
tory which would render such a supposition absurd. 
Monkeys use stones as hammers and sticks as levers, 
and appreciate the advantage to be derived from this 
the simplest of the mechanical powers. With them, 
as with primitive or uneducated men, this knowledge 
is purely empirical, a product of experience, and does 
not imply a perception of mathematical truths or prin- 
ciples any more than the taking of a short cut diag- 
onally across a field involves a knowledge of the relation 
of the hypothenuse to the other two sides of a right- 
angled triangle. In neither case is there any ques- 
tion of what Prantl calls " spontaneous mathematical 
thinking.^^ 

Dr. Macgowan, who has resided in China since 1843, 
and travelled extensively in the Flowery Kingdom, 
states in a recent number of the E'orth China Daily 
News (1893) that there exists in the mountainous and 
densely wooded region of Manchuria near the Great 
Wall a species of ape which prepares from berries two 
sorts of wine, one greenish and the other reddish, and 
preserves them in earthern jars for winter use, when 
the springs and rivers are frozen. The jars are also 
made by the apes and are fully equal in workmanship 
to the pottery of many savage tribes. Dr. Macgowan 
asserts that there is in the province of Chekiang a 
kind of orang-outang which shows the same skill and 
prudence in manufacturing and storing beverages for 



262 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

the time of need. It is possible that the jars of wine 
may have been stolen by the monkeys, although the 
mountains in which they live are not inhabited by hu- 
man beings. According to Chinese authorities the 
orang-outangs of Chekiang have been observed pounding 
berries and other fruits in stone mortars. 

Simian dexterity is greatly increased by association 
with human beings and by observation of their doings. 
The owner of a pet monkey, which annoyed him by 
ringing the servants' bell, tied several knots in the 
cord, in order to make it shorter and place it out of 
the animal's reach. But the crafty creature was not to 
be thwarted by such a clumsy device, and, climbing 
up on a chair, artfully untied all the knots, and then 
gave the bell a succession of violent jerks to signalize 
his triumph. 

A monkey in the Zoological Garden at Philadelphia 
came into possession of a marble and a hickory nut 
which he tried in vain to crack with his teeth. After 
conferring with two other monkeys and chattering 
in a lively manner, he scraped away the sawdust so as 
to expose a space about two feet square of the zinc 
floor of his cage. He then climbed up on a crossbar, 
and from this vantage ground hurled the marble with 
all his force against the zinc and broke it into pieces, 
but found nothing edible inside. He then attempted 
to break the nut in the same manner, but without suc- 
cess. After several futile efforts he held another con- 
sultation with his companions and then handed the 
nut through the bars to a bystander, who cracked and 
returned it. The monkey then divided it into three 
portions, of which he gave one to each of his friends 
and advisers. The monkey in this case acted as a 



IDEATION IX ANIMALS AND MEN. 263 

cliild would have done under similar circumstances, 
and showed a like degree and kind of reflection and 
ingenuous confidence. It is probable, too, that liis 
conduct was somewhat influenced by previous study of 
mankind. 

In the Transvaal monkeys have been found to be 
very serviceable in the gold mines. Captain E. Moss 
states that he has twenty-four monkeys thus employed 
and that they do the work of about seven able-bodied 
men, and " it is no reflection upon the human labourers 
to say that they do a class of work a man can not do as 
well as they. In many instances they lend valuable aid 
where a man is useless. They gather up the small 
pieces of quartz that would be passed unnoticed by the 
workmen, and pile them up in little heaps that can 
be easily gathered up in a shovel and thrown into the 
mill. They are exceedingly adept at catching the 
little particles, and the very tilings that the human eye 
would easih pass over never escape their sharp eyes." 
He then relates how the idea of thus making use of 
them first occurred to him, and it is a pleasure to learn 
that they are not forced to work, but simply do of their 
own free Avill what they see others doing. 

'• When I went digging gold I had two monkeys 
that were exceedingly interesting pets. They were 
constantly following me about the mines, and one day 
I noticed that they were busily engaged in gathering 
up little bits of c^uartz and putting them in piles. They 
seemed to enjoy the labour very much, and would go 
to the mines every morning and work there during the 
day. It did not take me long to learn their value as 
labourers, and I decided to procure more. So I im- 
mediately procured a number, and now have two dozen 



264 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

working daily in and about the mines. It is exceed- 
ingly interesting to watch my two pet monkeys teach 
the new ones how to work, and still stranger to see how 
the newcomers take to it. They work just as they 
please, sometimes going down into the mines when they 
have cleared up all the debris on the outside. They 
live and work together without quarrelling any more 
than men do. They are quite methodical in their hab- 
its, and go to work and finish up in the same manner 
as human beings would do under similar circum- 
stances." 

Prantl also characterizes man as the only animal fa- 
miliar with the use of fire, and capable of applying it to 
culinary and economical purposes and to the increase 
of personal comfort. But this attainment is by no 
means common to all mankind. Homo sapiens inhab- 
ited the earth for ages before he discovered methods 
of generating this element and making it subservient 
to his interests. The habitual use of fire is the sign 
of a very considerable advancement toward civilization, 
and marks an important epoch in the evolution of the 
race. Chimpanzees, gorillas, and orang-outangs have 
been repeatedly seen bringing brushwood and throwing 
it on the camp fires which travellers have left burning, 
showing that they have learned by observation how to 
keep up a fire, although they have no means and do not 
understand the art of kindling it. By associating with 
man they soon acquire this knowledge, igniting friction 
matches, and often have to be watched carefully, like 
children, lest they should do immense mischief unwitting- 
ly as incendiaries. The same is true of ravens, which, 
when tamed, are fond of throwing pieces of paper and 
other light combustibles on the glowing coals, and see- 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 265 

ing them flash into flame. This favourite pastime ren- 
ders them exceedingly dangerous inmates of th€ house ; 
and it is probably this bird that was spoken of by Pliny 
as avis incendiaria. 

Ants store in their chambered hillocks certain sub- 
stances which, by fermentation, produce quite a high 
temperature, and are put there for the sole purpose of 
generating heat and warming their dwellings. Some 
birds, as, for example, the Australian megapode, or 
jungle fowl, hatch their eggs by artificial heat, result- 
ing from the decomposition of the leaves and decaying 
substances with which they cover them; raising large 
mounds that are sometimes twenty or thirty metres in 
circumference, and serve as incubators for successive 
generations of birds. Thus, while it is true that ani- 
mals do not make use of fire, they are not ignorant of 
the properties of heat, which they turn to practical ac- 
count in matters of domestic economy and household 
hfe. 

It is questionable whether Prantl's statement that 
animals " expect an effect, but not a logical sequence, 
and seek a cause, but not a logical ground," can be 
maintained. The following incident, related by Dr. 
Schomburgk, director of the zoological garden at Ade- 
laide, in South Australia, would seem to render such a 
distinction untenable. An old monkey of the genus 
Macacus sinicus, which was confined in a cage with two 
younger ones, flew at the keeper one day as he was sup- 
plying them with fresh water, and bit him so severely 
in the wrist as to injure the sinews and artery and to 
endanger his life. Schomburgk ordered the animal to 
be shot, but as an attendant approached the cage with a 
gun the culprit showed the greatest consternation, fled 



266 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

into the sleeping apartment of the cage, and could not 
be induced by any offers of tempting food to come out 
of this place of refuge. It must be added that the 
monkeys were perfectly accustomed to firearms, which 
had been frequently used for killing rats near the Cage, 
and had never manifested the slightest fear of them. 
Even now the other monkeys ate their food as usual, 
with a conscience void of offence, and were not at all 
disturbed by the sight of the murderous weapon. No 
sooner had the man with the gun withdrawn and con- 
cealed himself than the old monkey sneaked out, and, 
snatching some of the food, rushed back into his asy- 
lum; but when he tried to repeat this experiment a 
keeper closed the sliding-door from without, and thus 
cut off his retreat. As the man with the gun drew near 
again, the poor monkey seemed quite beside himself with 
terror. He first tried to open the sliding-door, then 
ran into every nook and corner of the cage in search of 
some way of escape, and finally, in despair, threw him- 
self flat on the floor and awaited his fate, which soon 
overtook him. The conduct of the monkey in this 
case can be explained only by assuming the animal to 
have been endowed with a moral sense and a logical fac- 
ulty, implying a clear perception of right and wrong, a 
consciousness of guilt, a knowledge of the use of fire- 
arms, and quite a complicated process of reasoning 
from these premises to a perfectly correct conclusion. 
The following case of quite recent occurrence proves 
that other animals besides monkeys are capable of rea- 
soning deductively. Mr. Allen H. Norton, the owner 
of a farm at Winsted, Conn., had a dog of mixed 
breed, partly cocker spaniel and partly hound, which 
was a good hunter and had been very serviceable in 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 267 

catching raccoons and other small game. In the spring 
of 1897 the dog, now twelve years old, was getting rather 
feeble and had lost some of its teeth, so that Mr. Norton, 
thinking that he had no further use for it, since it had 
ceased to be useful to Mm, concluded to have it shot. 
For this purpose he gave it over to the tenant, who took 
it into the field, put his gun on the ground, and began 
to dig a grave for the faithful animal, which lay beside 
the weapon intended soon to end its life, and watched 
the hole as it gradually grew deeper. When the work 
was nearly finished the dog suddenly sprang to its feet 
and ran away in great haste. The man tried to call 
it back, but for the first time on record it refused to 
obey, and rushing to the bank of the river, swam to the 
opposite side, disappeared in the woods, and never re- 
turned. This instance is even more remarkable than 
that of Dr. Schomburgk's monkey, since the acute exer- 
cise of the logical faculty was not stimulated, by the 
prickings of conscience. 

Perhaps the most human of anthropoid apes, as re- 
gards intelligence, is a species of chimpanzee called the 
soko, first discovered by Livingstone, and most fully 
described by him in his Last Journals. The teeth of 
these creatures, he says, " are slightly human, but their 
canines show the beast by their large development. 
The hands, or rather the fingers, are like those of the 
natives. They live in communities consisting of about 
a dozen individuals, and are strictly monogamous in 
their conjugal relations, and vegetarian, or rather fru- 
givorous, in their diet, their favourite food being bana- 
nas." The aborigines, the Manyuema, are, on the con- 
trary, cannibals, and are described by Livingstone as 
" the lowest of the low." One of them, who had killed 
18 



268 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

a woman, offered his grandmother to be killed in expia- 
tion of his offence, and this vicarions punishment was 
accepted as satisfactory. Even the sokos have a higher 
and more correct conception of justice than this; at least 
they do not make the innocent atone for the crimes of 
the guilty. If a soko " tries to seize the female of an- 
other, he is caught on the ground, and all unite in box- 
ing and biting the offender." " Numbers of them come 
down in the forest within a hundred yards of our camp, 
and would be unknown but for giving tongue like fox- 
hounds. This is their nearest approach to speech. A 
man hoeing was stalked by a soko and seized. He 
roared out, but the soko giggled and grinned, and left 
him, as if he had done it in play." It is evident that 
these animals have some sense of humour and appreciate 
a practical joke. They are inoffensive and unaggres- 
sive, but fearless and energetic in self-defence. They 
never molest women or unarmed men, but if any one ap- 
proaches them with a spear they rush upon him and 
wrest the weapon from his hands. If struck with a 
dart or an arrow, they pull it out, and stanch the blood 
by stuffing leaves into the wound. The natives recog- 
nise their harmless and human character, and say, 
" Soko is a man, and nothing bad in him." 

Sometimes they kidnap a child and take it up into a 
tree, but they never hurt it, and are ready to exchange 
it at any time for a bunch of bananas. Perhaps the 
robbery is for the sake of the ransom. When roaming 
through the forest, the female usually carries her in- 
fant in her arms; but in crossing a glade or other open 
ground, where they would be more exposed to danger, 
the father takes the child, and returns it to the mother 
as soon as they enter the wood again. They are ex:- 



IDEATION IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 269 

tremely fond of assembling in a remote part of the for- 
est and drumming on hollow trees and other resonant 
objects, accompanying this fearful din with loud yells, 
like sopranos and tenors of strong pulmonary powers 
trying to outshriek the clash and clang of a Wagnerian 
orchestra. This deafening noise does not differ greatly 
from " the natives' embryotic music/' and is quite as har- 
monious and pleasant to the ear as much of the music 
of the Chinese and other Oriental peoples. 

Livingstone had a young female soko, which, after 
having been petted for some time, was " quite like a 
spoiled child." She enjoyed shaking hands, and took 
as much pleasure in this tiresome manual ceremony as 
any American citizen who honours the President of the 
United States by calling on him at the White House. 
She liked to be carried about, and would beg people to 
take her in their arms. If they refused, she seemed 
greatty aggrieved, and would make a wry face, as if 
about to burst into tears, and wring her hands, appar- 
ently in severe distress of mind. She learned to eat 
whatever was set before her, drew grass and leaves 
around her for a bed, and covered herself with a mat 
when she went to sleep. She could untie a knot with 
her fingers and thumbs " in quite a systematic way," 
" looked daggers " at any one who interfered with her 
doings, and resented every attempt to touch what she 
regarded as her personal propert}^ 

Indeed, the idea of personal property, in distinction 
from communal property — such, for example, as the 
provisions stored by ants for winter — is quite as strong- 
ly developed in many of the higher species of animals 
as in some of the lower races of men. 



CHAPTER YIII. 

SPEECH AS A BAERIEE BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 

Max Miiller's theory. Hobbes's pun. Roots as ultimate facts. 
Sanskrit illustrations of their formation. Example of " quack " 
as a prolific root. Dr. Hun's specimen of child language. 
Horatio Hale's theory of the origin of tribal dialects. Meta- 
I morphoses of organic life and transformations of the roots of 

I speech. A philological ultimatum. General concepts im- 

\ properly denied to animals. Home Tooke's absurd statement. 
j Ability of animals to count and to classify objects. Words 

/ not the only symbols of thought. Whitney's doctrine of lan- 

I guage as a social institution. Pantomimic expression in man 

I and animals. Jager's distinction between emotional language 

1 and the language of thought. Worthlessness of speculation 

I without careful observation. Aphasia. Animals learn to un- 

( derstand human speech. " Nursery philology." Language 

1 evolved out of roots as vital organisms out of protoplasm. 

1 Clifford's poetic description of atoms. Noire's fantastic syner- 

gastic theory. The Homo alalus as a social being. Speech 
not a supernatural endowment. Bow-wow, pooh-pooh, and 
yo-he-ho theories. Psophos vs. phone. Animal utterances 
not mere unconceptional noises. Landois on animal voices. 
No break in the evolution of expression. Weir and -Janet on 
the vocal organs of ants. Philology in the menagerie. Gar- 
ner's studies of simian speech. Successful use of the phono- 
graph. Roots and concepts in the language of animals. Hy- 
pothetical language of the " missing link." Investigations of 
animal speech by Wenzel, Radeau, Jules Richard, and others. 
Remarkable parrots. Superior advantages possessed by Gar- 
ner for prosecuting his researches. His failure to accomplish 
270 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 271 

) what he expected to do in Africa. Dybowski's account of it. 

I His own report of the expedition confirmatory of Dybowski's 

I criticism. 

Max MiJLLEK, after admitting "the extraordinary 
accounts of the intellect, the understanding, the cau- 
tion, the judgment, the sagacity, acuteness, cleverness, 
genius, or even social virtues of animals," intrenches 
himself behind the " one palpable fact, namely, that, 
whatever animals do or do not do, no animal has ever 
spoTcen." This assertion is not strictly true. Parrots 
and ravens utter articulate sounds as distinctly as the 
average cockney, and in most cases make quite as in- 
telligent and edifying use of them for the expression of 
ideas. 

That no animal has ever made a natural and ha- 
bitual use of articulate speech for the communication 
of its thoughts and feelings is a truism which it would 
seem superfluous to emphasize or italicize. Equally 
irrelevant to the point at issue is the statement that 
" in every book on logic language is quoted as the spe- 
cific difference between man and other beings." It is 
not by the definitions of logicians that questions of 
this kind are to be decided. The Greeks called beasts 
speechless creatures (ra aAoya) just as they called for- 
eigners tongueless (ayAwrrot), meaning thereby per- 
sons whose language was unintelligible to them; and 
the epithet was no more appropriate in the former case 
than in the latter. It was for the same reason that the 
Eoman poet Ovid, when banished to the Pontus, charac- 
terized himself as a barbarian, because his language 
was not understood by the inhabitants of that country — 
harharus Jiic ego sum, quia non intelligor ulli. But such 
expressions must not be taken too literally. 



272 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Hobbes makes speaking the test of rationality — 
homo animal rationale, quia orationale — and assumes 
both powers to be the exclusive property of man; but 
his pithy statement is a quibble in fact as well as in 
form, and much better as a pnn than as a psycholog- 
ical proposition. " Language is our Eubicon/' says 
Max Miiller, " and no brute will dare to cross it." Why 
not? Because, if he does, our definitions will transform 
him from a brute into a man. " In a series of forms 
graduating from some apelike creature to man," Max 
Mliller maintains that the point where the animal ceases 
and the man begins can be determined with absolute 
precision, since " it would be coincident with the begin- 
ning of the radical period of language, with the first 
formation of a general idea embodied in the only form 
in which we find it embodied, namely, in the roots of 
our language." 

In reply to the statement that " both man and 
monkey are born without language," Muller asks " why 
a man always learns to speak, a monkey never." This 
query, if it is to be regarded as anything more than a 
bit of banter, implies a gross misconception of the 
theory of evolution, as though it involved the develop- 
ment of an individual monkey into an individual man. 
One might as well deny the descent of the dog from the 
wolf because a dog always learns to bark, a wolf never. 
In the course of ages, and as the result of long processes 
of evolution and transformation, monkeys have learned 
to speak, but when they have acquired this faculty we 
call them men. 

Max Miiller stops at roots or "phonetic cells" as 
"ultimate facts in the analysis of language," and vir- 
tually says to the philologist, " Thus far shalt thou 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 273 

go, and no farther, and here shall thy researches be 
stayed." " The scholar,'^ he declares, " begins and ends 
with these phonetic types; or, if he ignores them, and 
traces words back to the crie& of animals or to the inter- 
jections of men, he does so at his peril. The philoso- 
pher goes beyond, and he discovers in the line which 
separates rational from emotional language, conceptual 
from intuitional knowledge — in the roots of language 
he discovers the true barrier between Man and Beast." 

The philologist, who recognises in the roots of lan- 
guage the Ultima Thule beyond which he dare not 
push his investigations, confesses thereby his incompe- 
tency to solve the problem of the origin of language, 
and must resign this field of inquiry to the zoopsycholo- 
gist, who, freeing himself from the trammels and illu- 
sions of metaphysics, seeks to find a firm basis for his 
science in the strict and systematic study of facts. Im- 
agine the folly of the physiologist who should say to 
his fellow-scientists: " In your researches you must 
begin and end with cells. If, in studying organic struc- 
tures, you go back of cells and endeavour to discover 
the laws underlying their origin, you do so at your 
peril. Beware of the dangerous seductions of cytoblast 
and eytogenesis and the treacherous quagmires of pro- 
toplasm." 

Nevertheless, this attitude of mind is natural enough 
to the philologist, who is so absorbed in the laws which 
govern the transmutations of words that he comes to 
regard these metamorphoses as finalities, and never goes 
behind and beyond them. We must look, therefore, 
not to comparative philology, but to comparative psy- 
chology, for the discovery of the origin of language. 
Philology has to do with the growth and development 



274 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

of speech out of roots, which are assumed to be ultimate 
and unanalyzable elements, like the purely hypothetical 
particles which the physicist calls atoms; but as to the 
nature and genesis of roots themselves the philologist 
of to-day is as puzzled and perplexed as was the old 
Yedic poet when, in the presence of the universe and 
its mysterious generation, he could only utter the pa- 
thetic and helpless cry, " Who indeed knows, who can 
declare, whence it sprang, whence this evolution?" 

Doubtless the emotional stage precedes the intel- 
lectual or rational stage in the growth of language, but 
the former mode of expression does not cease when the 
latter begins, nor is it possible to draw a fixed and fast 
line of demarcation between them. Pa and ma are 
the roots of yatri and matri, and mean in Sanskrit to 
protect and to form, indicating the function of the 
father as the defender, and of the mother as the mould- 
er, of children. But how did they come to have these 
significations? Surely the infant who first used these 
expressions — and they are universally recognised as be- 
longing to the vocabulary of babes — did not associate 
with them the ideas which philologists now discover, 
and which grammarians and etymologists at a very early 
period put into them. How arbitrary these inferences 
are is evident from the variety of interpretations of 
which such words are susceptible. Thus ma means also 
to measure; hence the moon, as the measurer of time, 
was called matri; and from this point of view the term 
for mother was explained as referring to her office as 
the head of the household, who kept the keys of closet 
and pantry, and meted out to the servants and other 
members of the family the things necessary for them. 
It is furthermore a suspicious circumstance touching 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 275 

the habits of the Indo-Arj'an's progenitors that yd 
means to drink, and ydtri signifies a drinker; and for 
aught we know the verbal coincidence may not be acci- 
dental. As regards md, it means also bleating as a goat, 
and occurs in this sense in the Eig-Veda; and it is prob- 
able that in this onomatopoetic expression we come 
nearer to the real origin of the word for mother. 

There is a vast deal of vague speculation and unten- 
able assertion concerning the origin and formation of 
roots in language. In Sanskrit, for example, there are 
three radical words gar, meaning respectively to swal- 
low, to make a noise, and to wake. It is conceivable, 
says Max Miiller, that the first two of these roots may 
have been originally one and the same, and that gar, 
from meaning to swallow, may have come to mean the 
indistinct and disagreeable noise which often attends 
deglutition, and which in speaking is called swallowing 
letters or words. Yet the third root, he adds, can 
hardly be traced back to the same source, but has the 
right to be treated as a legitimate and independent com- 
panion of the other roots. From this example he de- 
duces the general principle that if roots have the same 
form, but a different meaning, they are to be regarded 
as originally different, notwithstanding their outward 
resemblance. He then passes from etymology to em- 
bryology, and reasons from analogy that " if two germs, 
though apparently alike, grow, under all circumstances, 
the one always into an ape and never beyond, the other 
always into a man and never below, then the two germs, 
though indistinguishable at first, and though following 
for a time the same line of embryonic development, 
are different from the beginning, whatever their begin- 
ning may have been." 



276 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

In this statement he begs the whole question at 
issue; and the philological illustration which he brings 
to bear upon an anthropological theory for the purpose 
of refuting it is itself exceedingly questionable, since 
nothing is easier or would be more natural than to 
derive gar, to wake, from gar, to make a noise; so that 
all three roots not only may have had, but probably did 
have, a common origin. In no case can it be positively 
affirmed that roots of the same form are not of the same 
origin, however widely they may differ from one another 
in signification. 

One of Darwin's grandchildren, as Mr. Eomanes 
states, called a duck " quack," and by a special and 
easily intelligible association called water also " quack." 
The same term was afterward extended to all fowls and 
winged creatures and to all fluids. A French sou and 
an American dollar were called " quack " on account 
of the eagle stamped upon them, and the same name 
was then given to all coins. Thus " quack " came to 
mean bird, fly, angel, wine, pond, river, shilling, medal, 
etc., and it is easy to trace every step of the process by 
which it acquired these various significations. 

According to Max Miiller's reasoning, " quack " in 
the sense of duck or bird must have a radically differ- 
ent origin from " quack " in the sense of pond or shil- 
ling. But how do we know that all roots having the 
same form, but different meanings, may not have origi- 
nated in this manner? Because we can no longer trace 
a word through all phases of its development and meta- 
morphosis is no proof that the development and meta- 
morphosis never took place. The evolution of the word 
" quack " in the vocabulary of the aforesaid child shows 
furthermore that a purely onomatopoetic root is not 



BAKRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 277 

always sterile, but may be prodigiously and puzzlingly 
prolific, germinating in the mind of the primitive man, 
and springing up and bearing fruit fifty or a hundred- 
fold. 

When we speak of a train of cars as "telescoped/' 
this use of the word has nothing in common with its 
primary and etymological meaning, and can be under- 
stood only by a knowledge of the construction of a tele- 
scope out of concentric tubes sliding into each other. 
Again, the telescopic chimney of a war vessel is not a 
point of far-seeing observation, as the composition of 
the qualifying word would imply, but a chimney which 
may be shoved together endwise, and thus put out of 
reach of the enemy's shot. 

Dr. Hun records in The Monthly Journal of Psycho- 
logical Medicine (1868) the case of a girl who invented 
a language of her own, and taught it to her younger 
brother. Papa and mamma used separately meant fa- 
ther and mother; but when linked together in the com- 
pound papa-mamma they meant church, prayer book, 
praying, and other acts of religious worship, because the 
child saw her parents going to church together. Gar 
odo meant " Send for the horse," and also paper and 
pencil, because the order for the horse was often writ- 
ten. Bau signified soldier and bishop, because both 
seemed to be more gorgeously dressed than other per- 
sons. Here the clothes made the man, and furnished 
the sole basis of his classification. It needed only the 
simplest and most superficial point of association in 
order to attach the most diverse significations to the 
same word. 

To the objection that these examples are mere child- 
ish whimseys, and that languages never originate and 



278 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

grow up in this manner, it may be replied that such an 
assertion assumes the very point to be proved. Mr. 
Horatio Hale maintains that the aboriginal tongues of 
South America and South Africa were produced in 
precisely this way. He thinks, too, that the numerous 
tribal dialects west of the Eocky Mountains had their 
origin in the isolation of orphaned children, and that 
such a result is possible, and indeed inevitable, wherever 
the climate and other external conditions are favour- 
able to the survival of small children bereft of their 
parents and separated from their kinsmen. 

Again, Max Miiller observes, in explanation of the 
manner in which roots were formed, that, " after a long 
struggle, the uncertain phonetic imitations of special 
impressions became the definite phonetic representations 
of general concepts," Thus "there must have been 
many imitations of the falling of stones, trees, leaves, 
rivers, rain, and hail, but in the end they were all com- 
bined in the simple root yat, expressive of quick move- 
ment, whether in falling, flying, or running. By giving 
up all that could remind the hearer of any special sound 
of rushing objects, the root pat became fitted as a sign 
of the general concept of quick movement." There 
was a great number of "imitative sounds of falling, 
out of which pat was selected, or out of which pat, by 
a higher degree of fitness, struggled into life and fixity." 
So, too, the prolific root mar, to grind or to break, 
" must be looked upon as tuned down from innumerable 
imitations of the sounds of breaking, crushing, crunch- 
ing, crashing, smashing, mashing, cracking, creaking, rat- 
tling and clattering, mauling and marring, till at last, 
after removing all that seemed too special, there remained 
the smooth and manageable Aryan root of mar" 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 279 

Now, pray, when did this remarkable evolution, 
which implies the close and continuous exercise of rare 
powers of comparison and abstraction and the perfect 
maturity of the intellectual faculties, take place? 
" Language," we are informed, " presupposes the forma- 
tion of concepts," and " all such concepts are embodied 
in roots." The formation of these concepts, then, must 
have preceded, logically and chronologically, the for- 
mation of the roots in which they are embodied, and 
must therefore have been effected without the aid of 
language, which was subsequently evolved or elaborated 
out of these roots. What becomes, then, of the asser- 
tion that it is impossible to think or to generalize with- 
out language, since language itself originated in a long 
and laborious process of thought and generalization? 

The manner in which the word " quack," in the 
case already cited, gradually acquired its widely differ- 
ent meanings is perfectly intelligible. Suppose, now, 
that the child, after having grown to manhood, re- 
tained, as the result of isolation, the use of the word 
" quack " in its diverse significations, and taught and 
transmitted it to his posterity, so that it became incor- 
porated in the language of his race. In a few genera- 
tions, especially among a rude people, the origin of the 
word would be forgotten, and it would be difficult to 
imagine how it came to acquire such a variety of mean- 
ings, and to stand for so many objects having appar- 
ently no connection with one another. In due time 
the philologist would come with his apparatus criticus, 
subject the word to a strictly scientific analysis, apply 
all the approved tests, and, after great expenditure 
of etymological erudition and conjectural ingenuity, 
would discover half a dozen wholly independent roots 



280 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOaY. 

of " quack " which could not be traced to one and the 
same source. 

No one knows how often, in the formative period 
of language, it may have happened that the growth of a 
word and the multiplication of its meanings may have 
been obscured and rendered incomprehensible because 
the intermediate stages of its development were for- 
gotten, and the connecting links that made the transi- 
tion easy and natural were lost. In the instance just 
cited we have also an example of a fruitful onomato- 
poetic root. Indeed, in our own tongue, " quack," the 
mere imitation of an animal cry, has given rise to a 
variety of words and conceptions, such as quack, quack- 
salver, quackery, which are as remote in their relations 
to the web-footed fowl as is the man who " plays at 
ducks and drakes " with his money, and ends his career 
as a "lame duck." 

Nothing could be more abrupt or incredible, to 
take an illustration from Nature, than the metamor- 
phoses of the Lepidoptera, the same individual under- 
going the most marvellous changes from caterpillar 
into chrysalis, and again into butterfly. Here the trans- 
formations are so great that, if we saw merely the result, 
we should never suspect the nature of the process. Crea- 
tures that for a long time were supposed to be entirely 
. distinct, and were classified as belonging not- only to 
different genera, but even to different orders of animals, 
are now known to be the same individual in different 
phases or stages of its development. Thus, as we are 
told by an eminent authority on Crustacea, " the Zoea, 
the Megalops, and the Carcinus Moenas, or shore crab, 
are but the baby, the child, and the adult forms of a 
single individual." 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 281 

The Amphicyon is an animal which may have been 
the common ancestor of the dog and the bear, although 
more closely allied to the former than to the latter. 
The Hymnardos, on the contrary, possesses more ursine 
than canine characteristics, but, by change of environ- 
ment and under stress of circumstances, might have 
branched off in either direction. The Archceopteryx 
LithograpJiica was a sort of griffin, from which both 
birds and reptiles may have descended. The Pliena- 
codus Primcevus may have been the progenitor of hoofed 
animals or clawed animals, and needed only slight modi- 
fications in order to ramif}^ into either class of quadru- 
peds. Examples of this sort abound among fossil crea- 
tures. 

What is here shown to be true of living organisms is 
still more probable of roots of speech; and the natural- 
ist might, with at least equal cogency and validity, argue 
analogically from the identity of these so exceedingly 
diverse Crustacea, or from the common origin of man 
and ape, that roots like da and gar, however much they 
may differ in meaning, are really traceable to one and 
the same source. 

" Show me only one root in the language of ani- 
mals," says Max Muller, "such as ale, to be sharp and 
quick, and from it two derivatives, as asva, the quick 
one — ^the horse — and acutus, sharp or quick-witted; 
nay, show me one animal that has the power of form- 
ing roots, that can put one and two together, and real- 
ize the simplest dual concept; show me one animal that 
can think and say ■ two,' and I should say that, so far 
as language is concerned, we can not oppose Mr. Dar- 
win's argument, and that man has, or at least may have 
been, developed from some lower animal." 



282 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Nothing could be more absurd than this sort of 
philological ultimatum, since, according to the theory 
of evolution, the language of animals has not yet reached 
this stage of development; for it would then become 
articulate speech, and be no longer the language of ani- 
mals, but the language of man. But this is surely no 
evidence or indication that one may not grow out of 
the other; on the contrary, it rather suggests the possi- 
bility of such growth and development. 

We can not be certain, however, that animals may 
not have general concepts. When a dog, in eager pur- 
suit of some object, yelps dk-dk, how do we know that 
this sharp utterance, which expresses the strong and 
/ impatient desire of the dog to overtake the object, may 

not stand in the canine mind for the general concept 
of quickness? It is used in pursuing all animals and 
inanimate things, bird, hare, squirrel, stick, or stone, 
and cannot therefore denote any single one of them, 
but must have a general signification. For aught we 
know, the language of animals may be made up of un- 
developed roots vaguely expressive of general concepts, 
or may even contain derivative sounds. The bark of a 
dog after bringing a stick or a stone to its master and 
requesting him to throw it again is slightly diiferent 
from the sharp yelp uttered in pursuing it; and it is 
impossible to know whether these sounds may not stand 
to each other in the relation of the radical to its de- 
rivative. 

Darwin asserts that " the dog, since being domesti- 
cated, has learned to bark in at least five or six distinct 
tones, namely: the bark of eagerness, as in the chase; 
rihat of anger, as well as growling; the yelp, or howl of 
despair, when shut up; the baying at night; the bark 



BAERIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 283 

of joy, when starting on a walk with his master; and 
the very distinct one of demand or suppHcation, as when 
wishing for a door or window to be opened." This 
variety of tones, expressing different desires and emo- 
tions in an animal that in its wild state conld not bark 
at all, marks a very considerable advance in the power 
of vocal utterance as the result of association with 
man. 

Max Miiller has recently come to the conclusion that 
roots originated in cries uttered by men in performing 
certain actions, such as digging, cutting, lifting, or 
pounding. This so-called clamor concomitans, or sound 
attending the action, became by association a clamor sig- 
nificans, or sound signifying the action. This explana- 
tion of the genesis of roots is doubtless, to a certain 
extent, correct, but comes perilously near to the '' bow- 
wow " and " pooh-pooh " theories which he formerly 
rejected with ridicule and ineffable scorn. It would be 
hard, however, to find a finer combination of concomi- 
tant and significant clamour than the deep bay of a 
pack of hounds. 

In one of his lectures Miiller quotes, as " an excel- 
lent answer to the interjectional theory," the following 
observations of Home Tooke in the Diversions of Pur- 
ley: "The dominion of speech is erected upon the 
downfall of interjections. Without the artful contriv- 
ance of language, mankind would have had nothing 
but interjections with which to communicate orally any 
of their feelings. The neighing of a horse, the lowing 
of a cow, the barking of a dog, the purring of a cat, 
sneezing, coughing, groaning, shrieking, and every other 
involuntary convulsion with oral sound have almost as 

good a title to be called parts of speech as interjections 
19 



284: ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

have. Voluntary interjections are employed only when 
the suddenness and vehemence of some affection or pas- 
sion return men to their natural state, and make them 
for a moment forget the use of speech; or when, from 
some circumstance, the shortness of time will not per- 
mit them to exercise it." 

This passage really confirms in the strongest manner 
the theory which it is cited in order to refute. The 
dominion of every improved implement is founded upon 
the downfall of an inferior implement. Thus the steel 
plough has superseded the pointed piece of wood with 
which the primitive husbandman scratched the surface 
of the earth; the matchlock has supplanted the cross- 
bow, the Remington rifle the rude musket, and the 
steam car the old stagecoach. Everywhere in the prog- 
ress of human invention the better instrument takes 
the place of the poorer one and robs it of its supremacy. 
The evolution of language furnishes no exception to this 
universal law. It is a means of communicating ideas 
and emotions from one person to another, and the more 
clearly, concisely, and forcibly it performs this function 
the more perfect it is as an instrument. To speak of 
the grammatically complicated, and therefore practi- 
cally clumsy, Sanskrit as superior to the simple and 
handy English, and to characterize the latter as the re- 
sult of degeneration and decay, is an abuse of terms 
involving an utter misconception of the purpose for 
which language exists. Sanskrit may be more interest- 
ing philologically than English, just as the five-toed 
Eohippus and the three-toed Hipparion may be more 
interesting anatomically than the horse; but no one 
would deny that the modern quadruped combines in a 
greater degree simplicity of structure with efficiency 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 285 

of function, and is therefore, as an animal, superior 
to its ancient prototypes. 

The very fact that, as Home Tooke observes, men 
return to their natural state in the use of interjections 
and exclamations well-nigh proves that these are the 
raw material, or linguistic protoplasm, out of which 
articulate or organic speech was evolved. But to com- 
pare a cough and a sneeze to an interjection, or to put 
them in the same category with the neigh of a horse, 
the bark of a dog, or the purr of a cat, shows a strange 
lack of discrimination between purely physical and in- 
voluntary convulsions and vocal sounds intended to 
express emotions of the mind. A cough or a sneeze may 
be more or less successfully imitated, like a stage laugh, 
and thus become the sign and suggestion of an idea; but 
a genuine cough or sneeze is a violent expulsion of the 
air through the throat or nose in consequence of local 
irritation beyond a man's control, and has, therefore, 
no oral or intellectual element in it. 

As regards the ability of animals to " think and say 
' tAvo,' '' it has been proved conclusively that the mag- 
pie and some other birds, even in their wild state, can 
count at least four, and this fact is recognised and util- 
ized by fowlers; but if it be true that it is impossible to 
form the concept " four " without the aid of language, 
it follows that the magpie must be able to say " four " 
in a language of its own. To deny this conclusion be- 
cause we do not understand " margot '' (as the magpie 
language might be called) would be to set up our own 
ignorance as a standard by which to test the magpie's 
intellectual capacity, and thus fall into the fallacy of 
argumentum db ignorantia facti. This knowledge of 
numeration can be greatly extended by instruction. A 



286 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

chimpanzee in the London Zoological Gardens^ says 
Mr. Eomanes, has been taught to count five. Ask her 
for four, three, two, or five straws in any order of suc- 
cession, and she will give the exact number required. 
She understands not only the names of these numerals, 
but also other words and phrases, just as a child does 
before learning to speak. 

All classification rests upon the power of generaliza- 
tion, and this faculty belongs to the lower animals as 
well as to men. As has been remarked by an acute ob- 
server: "Dogs can distinguish strangers and acquaint- 
ances, well-dressed persons from persons in rags, the 
canine species from all other species. They can not 
^ carry their classification far, not from want of memory 

and intelligence, but from want of a well-defined lan- 
guage and printed books." The dullest dog has a lively 
perception of the difference between canine and feline. 
N'o matter how much the particular dog may vary from 
other individuals of the species. 

As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, 
Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves, 

he is never confounded with the cat, but is at once 
recognised as canine. The dog not only thinks of these 
so diverse creatures as belonging to the same class, but 
is also conscious of belonging to it himself. Man's in- 
tellectual superiority consists in possessing a greater 
number of these concepts, and in being able to compare 
and combine them in reasoning processes with greater 
accuracy and facility, than the beast, although there 
are tribes of men in which this superiority is so slight 
as to be scarcely perceptible. 

Thus, for example, the aborigines of Australia have 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 287 

no words for the expression of abstract ideas or general 
conceptions, not even collective names for animals and 
plants, indicating a lack of the faculty of generalization. 
Their ability to discriminate between animals of the 
same species is far greater than the poverty of their 
vocabulary w^ould imply. They do not mistake a wild 
duck for a wild goose, and yet they call them both 
" monarum.'^ Every poisonous serpent is a " wonge " 
and every kind of turtle a " miaro." White is " ham- 
har " and black is " ngurue," but red, green, blue, and 
yellow are lumped together as " leiar " ; but it would 
be incorrect to infer from this want of special designa- 
tions that they do not distinguish between these four 
colours with the eye. The development of language 
has not kept pace with the cultivation of the organs of 
sense. Some Australian tribes can count only three, 
and none of them more than five; " garro " is one, '^ loo " 
two, " koromde " three, " wogaro " four, and " loo 
horomde '^ five; more than five is " meian" many. Even 
the natives who have learned a little English are not 
able to count beyond six with any degree of certainty, 
although they make use of the English numerals.* 

Exclamations, according to Max Mliller, " are as 
little to be called words as the expressive gestures which 
usually accompany these exclamations." N'o one asserts 
that they are words in the strict sense of the term; all 
that is claimed for them is that they express thoughts 
and feelings or reveal states of the mind, and may be 
regarded as language. This he admits when he adds, 
" In fact, interjections, together with gestures, the 

* Im australischen Busch, von Richard Semon, Leipzig, 1896, 
p. 240. 



^88 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

movements of the muscles of the mouth and the eye, 
would be quite sufhcient for all purposes which lan- 
guage answers with the majority of mankind/^ But 
as such exclamations and gesticulations are not words 
and do not constitute language, the majority of man- 
kind are destitute of thought, since we are assured that 
" language and thought are inseparable/' and that 
"there is no thought without words, as little as there 
are words without thought.'^ 

Prof. Mansel is nearer the truth when he says, " As 
a matter of necessity, men must think by symbols; as a 
matter of fact, they do think by language." But al- 
though words are the most convenient and most perfect 
symbols of thought, they are by no means the only ones. 
A man can count three by holding up three fingers, or 
by touching three objects, or by laying down three 
sticks, as the Veddahs do in bartering, without the aid 
of articulate speech. A dog can do the same by barking 
three times. It is not true that " language begins where 
interjections end." Articulate speech begins where 
pantomimic expression, emphasized by mere hooting 
and hallooing, ends; but both are instruments of 
thought and symbols for the representation and com- 
munication of ideas. 

" Speech," as Prof. Whitney has justly observed, 
" is not a personal possession, but a social institution. 
What we may severally choose to say is not language 
until it is accepted and employed by our fellows. The 
whole development of speech is wrought out by the 
community. That is a word, and only that, which is 
understood in a community. Their mutual understand- 
ing is the tie that connects it with the idea. It is a 
sign which each one has acquired from without, from 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 289 

the usage of others." Goethe, in his epigram Etymolo- 
gie, expresses the same thought: 

So wird erst nach und nach die Sprache festgerammelt, 
Und was ein Volk zusammen sich gestammelt, 
Muss ewiges Gesetz ftir Herz und Seele sein. 

" Man/' says Wilhelm von Humboldt, " understands 
himself fully only by testing the intelligibility of his 
words on others. The objectivity is increased when the 
word which he has formed is echoed back to him from 
the mouth of another. At the same time, it is not there- 
by robbed in the least of its subjective character, since 
man feels himself always one with man." What is felt 
and expressed by the individual must be refelt and re- 
expressed by the mass and stamped with its indorse- 
ment before it is accepted as speech. 

One who is deaf and dumb from his birth learns to 
give digital instead of lingual expression to his thoughts, 
and it has been observed that such a person in the act 
of thinking almost unconsciously moves his fingers, as 
though thought and digital action (as a substitute for 
articulation) were necessarily and inseparably connect- 
ed, thus proving that, while speech is a natural instru- 
ment for the expression of thought, other purely con- 
ventional methods may be substituted for it, and 
through habit may become quite as strongly associated 
with the thinking processes. 

Among savage tribes, and even among a people so 
highly civilized as the Arabs, signs and gestures play 
a very important part in the expression of thought, and 
the Neapolitan's love of pantomime and skill in the use 
of it are well known. Of the Veddahs of Ceylon Sir 
James Emerson Tennent says, " So degraded are some 



290 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

of these wretched outcasts that it has appeared doubt- 
ful in certain cases whether they have any language 
whatever "; and Mr. G. E. Mercer, who, by a long resi- 
dence in their country, acquired an intimate knowledge 
of their habits, affirms that " even their communica- 
tions with one another are made by signs, grimaces, 
and guttural sounds which bear little or no resemblance 
to distinct words or systematized language." It is not 
correct, from an anthropological point of view, to char- 
acterize the Yeddahs as '^ degraded." They are simply 
primitive and undeveloped. They are the remains of 
the aborigines of Ceylon; and the few articulate words 
they utter they have learned, parrotlike, from the Sin- 
ghalese, who invaded and conquered the country, and 
now constitute its chief population. 

Lord Monboddo's seemingly absurd and much-ridi- 
culed theory that language was formed by an assembly 
of learned men convened for that purpose is right so far 
as it affirms the conventional and communal character 
of articulate speech and written language; and this is 
doubtless all that the laird meant to imply by his rather 
bullish statement. He did not intend to assert that lan- 
guage was framed, like a political platform, by a body 
of men come together expressly for that object, but 
that it was gradually developed in consequence of their 
coming together as individuals, families, and communi- 
ties, and endeavouring to understand one another by 
means of gestures and exclamations and onomatopoetic 
sounds. It was also the most intelligent men of their 
time; those who were endowed with the greatest amount 
of wisdom, the quickest wits, and the readiest faculty of 
invention; in short, the foremost men of primitive life, 
who contributed most to this result. Then, as now. 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 291 

the progress of the race was due to the impetus imparted 
to it by the best brains, and was less the effect of happy 
chance than we are fain to imagine. 

Articulate speech is an immense help to the intel- 
lectual processes of induction and deduction, abstrac- 
tion and generalization, but by no means essential to 
these mental operations. As Dr. Paul Carus observes, 
" The act of naming is an enormous economy of mental 
activity "; but it is not absolutely necessary to this kind 
of activity. 

The fox must have an abstract idea of danger apart 
from any concrete form or embodiment of it; other- 
wise he would not be constantly on the alert, anticipat- 
ing peril when it is not present. Flourens asserts, " It 
is a fact that beasts do not form general ideas, and it 
is another fact that man does form them"; he then 
adds: " The study of mind by mind is that which puts 
the final stamp upon the profound difference separating 
beast from man. Intelligence iij beasts does not study 
intelligence." Buffon caps the climax of this sort of 
dogmatism by declaring that in animals " c^est le corps 
qui parle au corps.''' A body talking to another body 
without the mediation of mental faculties would be a 
phenomenon worth seeing. 

Pantomime is the natural language of man and the 
lower animals, and is intelligible without previous study. 
In this respect it differs from articulate speech, which 
is mainly conventional in its character. A word has 
the meaning which common consent has tacitly attrib- 
uted to it, and which usage has sanctioned. It is not 
necessary, however, that any two persons should agree 
beforehand as to the signification of mimetic movements 
in order to be able to communicate their ideas in this 



292 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

manner. Two deaf-mutes, or savages of alien tribes, 
on meeting for the first time, have no definite stock 
of signs with which to converse, but create them as 
they go along. If one sign fails to express the 
thought clearly, they try another. If A wishes to 
convey to C the drift of a previous conversation 
with B, he will do so by means of signs many of which 
differ from those used in conversing with B. He 
will constantly invent new and more expressive signs, 
and thereby convey his meaning more fully and 
distinctly than in his first conversation. This natural 
sign language may be enlarged and perfected, as it is 
in institutes for deaf-mutes, by the introduction of con- 
ventional elements, and thus an extended mimetic sys- 
tem for the communication of thought may be devel- 
oped. 

The dog expresses thoughts and emotions by wag- 
ging his tail, to quite as good purpose as many persons 
do by wagging their tongues. We impart our wishes 
to animals almost exclusively by gestures, until they 
learn to understand our words, which then alone suf- 
fice, so that the pantomime is no longer necessary except 
for sake of emphasis in case they refuse to obey. Ani- 
mals also, in communicating their desires to us, make 
use of signs accompanied by all sorts of vocal utter- 
ances, which through association have become intelli- 
gible. 

Among insects, especially ants and bees, the lan- 
guage of gesture is highly developed. Owing to the 
smallness of these creatures, it is difficult to observe 
them in their conversational intercourse, and their re- 
moteness from us in structure and organization renders 
it still more difficult for us to identify ourselves with 



BAREIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 293 

tliem through sympathy, and to get a clear conception 
of their states of mind. We are fully justified, how- 
ever, in inferring from their conduct that they com- 
municate their ideas to one another with rapidity, pre- 
cision, and intelligibleness. " If psychologists of to- 
day," remarks Prof. Wundt, " overlooking all that an 
animal can express through gestures and sounds, limit 
the possession of language to mankind, such a con- 
clusion is scarcely less absurd than that of many philoso- 
phers of antiquity who regarded the languages of bar- 
barous nations as animal cries." 

This observation is perfectly true, but not new, in- 
asmuch as it was made more than fourteen centuries 
ago by the Neoplatonist Porphyrins in his treatise on 
abstinence from animal food (Trcpt dTrox^s efjuj/vx^v)* 
After stating that the different tones used by animals 
show that they have a language for the expression of 
different sentiments, such as anger, fear, and affection, 
he adds: " To deny animals language because it is unin- 
telligible to us would be as absurd as for the crows to 
maintain that their croaking is the only rational speech, 
and that we are devoid of reason because we do not 
understand it; or for the inhabitants of Attica to claim 
that theirs is the only language, and that all who do 
not speak it are devoid of reason. Nevertheless, an in- 
habitant of Attica could as easily understand the lan- 
guage of crows as those of Persians and Syrians." For- 
eign tongues, to those who hear them for the first time, 
are hardly more intelligible than the inarticulate sounds 
uttered by animals. The Emperor Julian compared the 
speech of the Germans to the caw of ravens, and to the 
Athenians the conversation of Thracians and Scythians 
sounded like the chatter of cranes. 



294 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOaY. 

Prof. Jaeger's assertion that animals have merely 
emotional language {Gefithlssprache) in distinction from 
the language of thought {Gedankenspraclie) is psycho- 
logically untenable. In all operations of the mind, 
thoughts and feelings are inextricably interblended, 
and it is impossible to draw a line of demarcation be- 
tween them. There is no language of emotion as op- 
posed to or essentially distinct from language of 
thought. Emotion is only thought under tension, 
thought strongly emphasized and impelled by desire. 
Every cry or exclamation presupposes an idea or intel- 
lectual conception, without which the emotion would 
never arise; and it is hardly possible to determine where 
the one begins and the other ends. 

To what an extent animals are at the mercy of meta- 
physicians is illustrated by the following passage from 
a treatise by Prof. Green: " There is no reason to sup- 
pose, because the burnt dog shuns the fire, that it per- 
ceives any relation between it and the pain of being 
burnt. . . . The dog's conduct may be accounted for 
by* the simple sequence of an imagination upon a visual 
sensation, resembling ones which actual pain has pre- 
viously followed. . . . Till dogs can talk, what data 
have we on which to found another explanation? " We 
have precisely the same data in the case of the burnt 
dog as in the case of the burnt child who shuns the fire; 
and we are justified in reasoning from analogy that 
the conduct of the dog is due to the same perception 
of cause and effect as that of the child. " The simple 
sequence of an imagination upon a visual sensation, 
resembling ones which actual pain has previously fol- 
lowed," means, when translated from metaphysical 
jargon into plain English, that, when a dog sees a flame. 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 295 

its resemblance to another flame which burned him 
leads him to avoid it, lest this one should also burn 
him. The misfortune of dogs in not being endowed 
with articulate speech is greatly aggravated if it renders 
them liable to have such elaborate philosophy as this 
mouthed over them. 

The phenomenon of aphasia furnishes additional 
evidence that the faculty of speech is not essential to 
the exercise of thought or Jo the power of reasoning. 
Aphasia, or speechlessness, as has been shown by Bouil- 
land, Broca, and other pathologists, is the result of a 
disease or lesion of the third frontal convolution of the 
left hemisphere of the brain. Any injury of this part 
produces a partial or complete loss of articulate speech 
without disturbing or diminishing in the least the 
action of the intellectual faculties. The vocal organs 
and all the mechanism of articulation remain intact, 
and the ability to think logically and consecutively is 
unimpaired. There is no paralysis of the muscular ap- 
paratus necessary to the enunciation of words, and no 
derangement of the mental operations so far as the for- 
mation and orderly sequence of conceptions are con- 
cerned; only the power of correct verbal expression is 
gone. Max Miiller speaks with contempt of " a fold 
of the brain "; but here we have an instance in which 
articulate speech is dependent upon the full develop- 
ment and the healthy action of a mere fold of the brain, 
which, if his own theory be true, is the Rubicon sepa- 
rating man from the brute. 

The aphasiac can express his thoughts and feelings 
by facial movements, gesticulations, and guttural noises, 
but is unable to articulate words correctly. He thus 
reverts to the condition of mankind prior to the develop- 



296 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

ment of the speech-producing cerebral convolution plus 
the knowledge and mental capacity acquired since that 
time. Finkelnburg reports the extreme case of a woman 
whose memory for things and persons was normal, and 
in whose general conduct nothing anomalous was ob- 
servable, but who had lost entirely the use of speech, 
and could understand neither spoken nor written words. 
She was a pious Catholic, but never made the sign of 
the cross of her own accord or when told to do so, yet 
readily imitated others when she saw them do it. She 
was in the hospital three months, but never learned 
that the ringing of the bell was the signal for dinner. 
Symbols even of the most general character had for her 
no significance; her understanding was confined strictly 
and directly to things, and her consciousness seems to 
have sunk to the level of a rather dull anthropoid. 

In apes, cretins, and many microcephalous persons, 
the convolution of the brain on which the power of 
articulate speech depends is rudimentary. Human and 
simian brains are constructed on precisely the same plan, 
and diifer only in the development and consequent ar- 
rangement of the convolutions. " In man," says Prof. 
Vogt, " the third frontal convolution is extraordinarily 
developed and covers the insula, while the transverse 
central convolutions are much less prominent; in the 
ape, on the contrary, the third frontal convolution is 
but slightly developed, while the central transverse con- 
volutions are very large, descending quite to the edge 
of the hemisphere and giving to the fissure of Sylvius 
the form of a V." 

The difference is one of degree, and not of kind, 
resulting from the higher evolution of the same type. 
Max Miiller admits it to be possible and intelligible that 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 297 

"that most wonderful of organs^ the eye, has been de- 
veloped out of a pigmentary spot, and the ear out of 
a particularly sore place in the skin — that, in fact, an 
animal without any organs of sense may in time grow 
into an animal with organs of sense "; but " by no effort 
of the understanding, by no stretch of imagination," 
he declares, " can I explain to myself how language 
could have grown out of anything which animals pos- 
sess, even if we granted them millions of years for that 
purpose." In other words, he can imagine how a sore 
spot in the skin could grow into a complex and delicate 
organ like the ear, or a sensitive black spot could de- 
velop into the marvellous mechanism of the eye, but by 
no mental effort can he conceive how an imperfectly 
developed convolution in the brain of an ape could 
become a perfectly developed convolution in the brain 
of a man. Surely this is one of the strangest freaks of 
the imagination on record. Yet he admits the correct- 
ness of Dr. Broca's conclusions on this subject. " So 
much," he says, " seems to be established: if a certain 
portion of the brain on the left side of the anterior lobe 
happens to be affected by disease, the patient becomes 
unable to use rational language; while, unless some 
other mental disease is added to aphasia, he retains the 
faculty of emotional language, and of communicating 
with others by means of signs and gestures." This state- 
ment is not exact. Aphasia is not the loss of rational 
language, but of articulate speech, which is something 
quite different. The aphasiac can exercise his reasoning 
powers and can entertain and express by pantomime 
rational ideas, but he is unable to utter or embody them 
in either oral or written words, although he may under- 
stand them when addressed to his ear or eye. 



ANIMAL PYSCHOLOGY. 

Sometimes there is not an entire cessation, but a 
curious and comical perversion of speech in the pa- 
tients, who use words having no connection with the 
ideas they wish to convey, and are often, though not 
always, unconscious of any discrepancy or impropriety 
in their language. Thus Trousseau narrates the case 
of a lady who, on receiving a call, met her visitor with 
a kindly smile, and, pointing to a chair, exclaimed, 
" Pig, brute, stupid fool! '' " Madame begs you to be 
seated," said a friend who was present, and thus inter- 
preted the courtesy really intended by the rude greet- 
ing. The lady's conduct was otherwise sensible, and 
her process of thought logical and rational, although 
her utterances were wholly irrelevant, and usually most 
coarse when meant to be most charming. 

Another striking case, recorded by Trousseau and 
cited by Bateman, is that of Prof. Eostan, who, while 
occupied in reading one of Lamartine's literary con- 
versations, began to be aware that he only partially 
comprehended the sense of the text. He stopped for a 
moment, then resumed his reading, and again experi- 
enced the same difficulty. He became alarmed, and 
wished to call for assistance, when, to his surprise, he 
found himself unable to speak a word. It now occurred 
to him that he might have had a stroke of apoplexy, 
but he could move all his limbs and could discover no 
evidences of paralysis. He rang the bell, but when the 
servant appeared he could not tell what he wanted. 
He could move his tongue in all directions, and seemed 
to have full control of his vocal organs, but could not 
express a thought by speech. He made a sign that he 
wished to write, but when pen and ink and paper were 
brought, although he had the perfect use of his hand, 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 299 

he could not express a thought by writing. After the 
lapse of two or three hours a physician came, and Eos- 
tan, turning up his sleeve and pointing to his arm, 
thereby manifested the desire to be bled. No sooner 
was this done, and the local pressure on the brain re- 
lieved, than he was able to utter a few words, and after 
twelve hours was completely restored and could speak 
as well as ever. 

An orang-outang that had once been bled on ac- 
count of illness, not feeling well some time afterward, 
went from one person to another, and, pointing to the 
vein in his arm, signified plainly enough that he wished 
the operation to be repeated. In this instance, the 
orang, not being endowed with articulate speech owing 
to the rudimentary condition of a convolution of the 
brain, expressed his ideas just as the Frenchman did, 
who had been temporarily deprived of the faculty of 
articulate speech owing to the suspension of function 
in the same convolution of the brain. The process of 
reasoning was identical in both cases. The idea of re- 
covery from sickness was associated with the act of 
venesection as the result of experience. In short, the 
man reverted for the time being to the condition of the 
monkey. How then should it be deemed a thing im- 
possible for him to have risen out of such a condition? 

It is also interesting to note that an injury to the 
brain of the lower animals sometimes produces phe- 
nomena analogous to those of aphasia in man; causing 
birds, for example, to sing their notes wrong, reversing 
the intonation and accent, like the quail mentioned by 
Dr. Abbott, which, owing to such an accident, per- 
sistently whistled " white-bob " instead of " bob-white." 

It would be superfluous to multiply instances of the 
20 



300 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

capability of understanding articulate speech mani- 
fested by monkeys, horses, dogs, cats, elephants, birds, 
and other animals which acquire this power, as children 
do, through the ear and by the exercise of attention. 
They also show a nice discrimination in distinguishing 
between words similar in sound. A parrot or a raven 
masters a new sentence by repeating it, and working 
at it, just as a schoolboy solves a hard problem. These 
birds associate sounds with objects, and thus invent 
names for them. Every dog is a " bow-wow,^^ and every 
cat a " miau-miau." The denotative term has an ono- 
matopoetic origin, and by the process of generalization 
is applied to all animals of the species; it is not neces- 
sary that the parrot should have heard each individual 
dog bark or cat mew before giving it its appropriate 
name. A raven belonging to Grotthard Heidegger, a 
clergyman and rector of the gymnasium in Zurich, was 
constantly picking up words dropped in general con- 
versation, and using them afterward in the most sur- 
prising manner. 

Even animals whose laryngeal apparatus is not 
structurally adapted to the production of articulate 
sounds may be taught to utter them. Leibnitz mentions 
a dog which had learned to pronounce thirty words dis- 
tinctly. In the Dumfries Journal of January, 1829, an 
account is given of a dog which called out " William " 
so as to be clearly understood; and Mr. Eomanes cites 
the case of an English terrier which had been taught 
to say, "How are you, grandmam?" The careful and 
systematic experiments now being made in this direction 
by Prof. A. Graham Bell and other scientists are ex- 
ceedingly interesting, and may lead to important re- 
sults. 



BARKIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 301 

In view of these facts, it is evident that the barrier 
between human and animal intelligence, once deemed 
impassable, is becoming more and more imperceptible, 
and with the rapid progress of zoopsychological re- 
search will soon disappear altogether. " When we 
remember," sa3's Prof. Sayce, " the inarticulate clicks 
which still form part of the Bushman's language, it 
would seem as if no line of division could be drawn 
between man and beast, even when language is made the 
test." Apes make use of similar clicks for a like pur- 
pose, and these sounds are doubtless survivals of speech 
before it became distinctively articulate. 

Max Miiller expresses great contempt for what he 
calls " nursery philology," which, he thinks, can throw 
no light on the origin of human speech. " The two 
problems, how a child learns to speak English, and 
how language was elaborated for the first time, are as 
remote from each other as the two poles." This remark 
betrays an utter misconception of the objects to be at- 
tained by observing the earliest stages in the mental 
development of infants. It is not to see how a child 
learns English or German or any other known language, 
but how it attempts to construct a language of its own 
for the expression of its thoughts, that interests the 
psychologist, and may aid him in solving the problem 
of the origin of speech. That it " can be solved by a 
careful analysis of language, such as it exists in the im- 
mense variety of spoken languages all over the globe," 
is highly improbable, and, indeed, from the very nature 
of the questions involved, quite impossible. All efforts 
that have been made in this direction from the dawn 
of philosophical speculation to the present time have 
failed, and are forever predoomed to failure. 



302 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

The philologist can no more explain the origin of 
roots by the study of languages than the physiologist 
can discover the origin of protoplasm by dissecting vital 
organisms, or the psychologist can determine the origin 
of the will by appealing to consciousness. Given roots, 
and there is no mystery about the growth and structure 
of language; given protoplasm, and the evolution of 
organic life in harmony with its environment is per- 
fectly intelligible; and a correct conception of volition 
is the safest clew to the intricate maze of human con- 
duct and the soundest basis on which to build a system 
of ethics. It must be remembered, too, that in spoken 
and written language there are no roots, but only the 
outgrowths of roots — namely, words arranged in sen- 
tences. The dictionary defines a root as " a primitive 
form of speech, one of the earliest terms employed in 
language "; but so far as our knowledge extends, no 
tribe of men, however primitive, ever used such a form 
of speech, and no such terms are found in any lan- 
guage. Eoots as such have then no real and independ- 
ent existence, and, while it would be hardly correct 
perhaps to call them fictions of the philologist, they 
are the products of philological analysis, and exist in 
human speech only as the protoplasmic element out of 
which it is evolved. 

In a brilliant lecture on Atoms, the late Prof. Clif- 
ford describes the movements of these molecules as they 
swing around and then fly away in different directions, 
mutually approaching and receding, and behaving to 
one another " somewhat in the same way as two people 
do who are dancing Sir Eoger de Coverley." An en- 
thusiastic critic, who quotes the whole passage, remarks, 
" Such scientific exposition as this is as beautiful as 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 303 

poetry"; and he might have added, like poetry, it is 
purely a creation of the imagination. The particles, 
whose motions are so minutely and vividly depicted, 
are wholly hypothetical, and, if a matter-of-fact pupil 
were to ask the professor where he sees all these beauti- 
ful things, he could only reply, with Hamlet, " In my 
mind's eye, Horatio." They belong to the realm of 
mythopoetic fancy, as truly as do the Muses of Apollo 
or " the rosy-bosomed Hours in fair Yenus' train." 

Equally remote from human experience and impos- 
sible at any period in the evolution of the human race is 
Max Muller's often-quoted description of the processes 
by which such roots as pat and mar were " tuned down " 
into their present " smooth and manageable " shape, and 
rendered serviceable as signs of general concepts. There 
is no stage in the growth of human speech in which one 
can conceive of such a process having taken place, and 
every attempt to imagine and to describe it leads logic- 
ally to no end of philological contradictions and psy- 
chological absurdities. 

In the first part of this chapter we quoted Max Mul- 
ler's theory of " roots as- ultimate facts," and his warn- 
ing of some mysterious danger that would be incurred 
b}^ the rejection of this view. He now adopts the hy- 
pothesis suggested by the late Prof. Noire, " that the 
primitive roots of Aryan speech may owe their origin to 
the sounds which naturally accompany many acts per- 
formed in common by members of a family, a clan, or a 
village." Here we have the strange spectacle of men so 
highly civilized as to be living together in families, clans, 
or villages, and yet by their joint efforts in performing 
certain tasks that require their united strength, creating 
the primitive roots of their language. But as all words 



304 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

are derived from roots, and all human languages are 
evolved out of roots, and every thought that ever crossed 
the mind of man can be traced back to a few simple con- 
cepts embodied in roots, what was the language of the 
families and communities thus engaged in unconsciously, 
but not the less really, producing the roots of their lan- 
guage ? The only logical inference from the premises 
is that they were speechless, and although Max Miiller 
distinctly and disdainfully repudiates the Homo alalus, 
and declares that he knows nothing of such a creature, 
the theory he advocates brings us face to face, not merely 
with the Homo alalus, as a solitary individual, but with 
socially organized masses of homines alali, toiling to- 
gether and " finding relief in emitting their breath in 
more or less musical modulation," and thus uttering 
concomitant sounds which express their common acts 
and become " the germs of conceptual language " called 
roots. It was in this way that the concept of rubbing 
came to " be expressed by mar, and that of tearing by 
ddr." The same holds true of the roots pa to protect 
and md to form. As the words derived from these roots 
are necessarily of later origin than the roots themselves 
we are driven to the conclusion that the Aryans, at the 
time when they began to live in families, clans, or vil- 
lages, and before they had shouted in unison at their work 
and thus created these roots, had no words for death 
(mara), or disease (mdri), or rent (ddra), or even for 
father (pitri) and mother (mdtri), since the parenthetic 
words are admitted to be the oldest terms in the Aryan 
family of languages used to express these concepts or to 
denote these relations, and could not therefore have been 
preceded by any others, a conclusion which is a com- 
plete redudio ad dbsurdum of the whole symphonic or 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 305 

" synergistic " theory as applied to the origin of human 
speech. 

Again, we are told in a passage already cited that the 
point in the process of evolution where the animal ceases 
and the man begins is coincident with the formation of 
the roots of language, and that these roots constitute an 
impassable barrier between man and beast. If this state- 
ment be correct, we are at a loss to know how to classify 
zoologically our primitive ancestors, who had not yet 
had occasion to perform acts in common, and whom the 
etymogenetic clamor concomitans had therefore not yet 
provided with the stock of radicals essential to the de- 
velopment of speech and of general ideas. So far as 
their claims to humanity are concerned, they are cer- 
tainly on the wrong side of the barrier, and can lift them- 
selves over it only by united and persistent exertions of 
the lungs in crying yo-he-ho! 

That there was a time " when the first sound of lan- 
guage burst forth from the breast of the first man, as yet 
dumb " is admitted by Max Miiller, who quotes with ap- 
proval a sentence to this effect from Steinthal. Here 
we are again thrown into the disreputable society of " the 
Homo alalus, the speechless progenitor of Homo sa- 
piens" notwithstanding the cynical reproach made to 
Prof. Eomanes for seeming to be " so intimately 
acquainted " with that questionable individual. What 
sort of creature could " this first man, as yet dumb," 
this unspeakable Caliban, have been? According to the 
definition, he did not possess the one essential charac- 
teristic of man, and must therefore have been a brute 
'^ honoured with a human shape "; and although we are 
assured that " whatever animals may do or not do, no ani- 
mal has ever spoken,'' speech did burst forth from the 



306 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

breast of this primeval animal, and the anthropoid prod- 
igy, rational but not yet orational, suddenly spoke out 
and became the ancestor of a flippant and garrulous 
race. 

The origin of language, like the origin of life, is so 
obscure that some thinkers, in despair of discovering it, 
have been content to let it remain a mystery by declaring 
it to be a special gift of God, with which man was en- 
dowed at his creation or which was taught him imme- 
diately afterward by his Creator. In either case, the 
gift must have been transmissible from generation to 
generation in order to become the heirloom of the race. 
No one, however, will maintain that a child inherits its 
language from its parents; what it inherits is the faculty, 
which its earliest progenitors must have also possessed, 
of producing a language, and this power is not the less 
creative, because with the child of to-day the process is 
facilitated and the result determined by its social and 
domestic environment. But the existence of such a 
faculty and its continued exercise can be fully accounted 
for by the doctrine of evolution without necessitating the 
intervention of a deus ex machina. Indeed, an act of 
special creation would explain or rather account for the 
possession of this faculty by the person on whom it was 
miraculously conferred, but not by his descendants. As 
Steinthal observes, " What a man has been exception- 
ally endowed with by God no other man can learn from 
him." Only that is learnable which comes through the 
natural and progressive development of the power of 
learning inherent in the race, and which each individual 
is capable of learning for himself, though less easily 
than through intercourse with others. The theory of 
the divine origin of language may therefore be set aside 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 307 

as unscientific, since it evades the question instead of 
answering it, and complicates the problem by substi- 
tuting two mysteries for one, and as inadequate, since 
it fails to account for the phenomena in their historical 
continuity. 

Apart from the untenable assumption of supernat- 
uralism, all principles involved in the origin of language 
may be reduced to three : the onomatopoetic, the inter- 
jectional and the synergistic principle, or according to 
Max Miiller's vernacular and expressive nomenclature, 
the bow-wow, the pooh-pooh, and the yo-he-ho theories. 
" Those who appeal to words Hke thunder as derived from 
the rumbling sound in the clouds without any concep- 
tual root standing between our conceptual word thunder 
and these unconceptual noises, hold the bow-wow 
theory. Those who hold that fiend is derived from fie, 
without any conceptual root standing between the un-. 
conceptual fie and the conceptual word fiend, hold the 
pooh-pooh theory. Those who would derive to heave 
and to hoist from sounds like yo-he-ho, would hold 
what may be called the yo-he-ho theory." In this con- 
nection. Max Miiller states that " the yo-he-ho theory is 
the very opposite of what Noire called the synergistic 
theory " ; although he does not make the distinction 
clear and was himself the first who substituted this slang 
term for the dignified Greek designation, when he en- 
deavoured to show how the roots mar, ddr, and tan might 
have been produced by men engaged in common acts of 
grinding, tearing, and stretching, and finding relief in 
emitting their breath in musical modulation, as sailors 
are wont to do in pulling ropes. The same synergistic 
activity of primitive men in gulping their food and the 
noise of simultaneous deglutition would give rise to the 



308 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

root gar, to swallow; whereas the reverse process of dis- 
gorging the contents of an overloaded stomach and the 
■unmistakable sound attending this operation, especially 
when performed by several persons synchronously, as 
was the custom of Eoman gormands at their banquets, 
would be expressed by vam, a root that is found in every 
Aryan tongue, thus proving at what a very early period 
this vigorous race began, as the Germans say " to call 
upon the name of St. Ulrich." It will never do for the 
godfather of Yo-he-ho, who stood sponsor for the in- 
fant and held it so tenderly in his arms at the font, to 
repudiate this youngest born of philological bantlings, 
simply because, as it grows older, it bears so strong a re- 
semblance to its big and burly brother Bow-wow. 

As regards the second of the above-mentioned theo- 
ries, we can hardly believe that even the most inveterate 
pooh-poohist would derive fiend from fie either directly 
or indirectly. Irascible Germans, under strong excite- 
ment, are apt to link the words together in the scornful 
phrase, Pfuil Teufel! But no one who has given any 
thought to the subject would connect them etymologic- 
ally. 

In the sentence which we have quoted there seems 
to be also a queer confusion of ideas concerning the con- 
ceptual and the unconceptual. Thunder, regarded as 
the report which follows the discharge of atmospherical 
electricity, may be properly spoken of as an unconcep- 
tual noise; yet it is something more than this to the 
primitive man or the savage, who hears in it the voice of 
an angry deity. Again, if a person wishes to inform an- 
other that he has heard thunder by pointing to the sky 
and imitating the sound, the rumble thus produced is 
no longer unconceptual, but becomes the sign of a dis- 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 309 

tinct and intelligible idea. So, too, of interjections, 
such as fie and fudge, they express the concept of min- 
gled incredulity and contempt as clearly as any colloca- 
tion of words in a sentence could do. This theory is 
carried so far by its author as to lead him to the assertion 
that mispronunciation annihilates a word, the change of 
a vowel or consonant, or " only an accent " sufficing to 
deprive it of its articulate character and to resolve it 
into empty noise, or " what Heraclitus would call a mere 
psophos." This position is justly characterized by Prof. 
Whitney as "not only wrong, but ludicrously wrong." 
What becomes of the hundreds of words in the English 
language which many persons habitually mispronounce, 
and even lexicographers accent differently? Does this 
deviation in orthoepy destroy the conceptual quality of 
the word and reduce it to a mere noise ? As regards the 
term psophos (i/^o<^os), here somewhat pedantically in- 
troduced, it was used by Greek writers in distinction 
from phone (<^(ov>}), vocal sound or tone, and Aristotle 
calls 'phdne the psophos of animate creatures (17 c^oivrj iJ/ocf>o^ 
rk ea-TLvifiij/vxov), hut it did not necessarily mean mere 
noise. It was also employed to denote the cries of peo- 
ple in the street or on the market place, and other sig- 
nificant sounds, including those produced by insects as 
well as the conventional rap on the door (i/^o<^etv t^v 
Ovpav) by which a visitor announced his presence and 
virtually asked whether he might enter. On the other 
hand, phone was applied to the utterances of beasts as 
well as of men, and even to the noises of inanimate 
things, as when Sophocles speaks of the voice of the 
loom (KepKt8o5 (jxovq). Indeed, if any inference could 
be drawn from an exhaustive and critical comparison 
of the passages in which these words are used, not 



310 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

only by Heraclitus^ but in a far more frequent and 
philosophical manner by Aristotle and his contempora- 
ries, it would certainly not favour the notion that a word 
is robbed of its significance by mispronunciation, or con- 
verted into mere noise by a false accent. That epochal 
clamor concomitans in which, according to the syner- 
gistic and, as Whitney calls it, " utterly fantastic 
theory," language had its origin, would have been to the 
Greeks a mere psophos. 

Wholly untenable, too, is the assertion that no 
traces of conceptual thought are discoverable in the lower 
animals. The very lowest forms of organic life com- 
municate with each other by means of sounds, although 
in many cases the manner of their production has not yet 
been definitely determined. Some insects possess vocal 
organs in the proper sense of the term and are thus en- 
abled to give voice to their emotions, while others ex- 
press their desires in a more mechanical way by the buzz- 
ing vibration of their wings or the stridulous friction of 
their legs. The death's-head moth has a sort of bagpipe 
arrangement, consisting of an internal sack and a probos- 
cis through which the air is forced, producing a shrill 
and doleful treble like that of the so-called chanter of the 
Scotch instrument. Gnats have a twofold mode of ex- 
pression — a voice accompanied by deeper tones made by 
the movement of the wings. This combination of 
sounds constitutes their language and, in a limited de- 
gree, appeals to them in the same manner as speech does 
to man, so that they are attracted by an imitation of it 
with the human voice or on a violin. Prof. Landois 
gives a comical example of this in his work on Thierstim- 
men: " One day," he says, " I found my servant boy in 
the garden engaged in his favourite occupation of doing 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 311 

nothing. By chance a swarm of musquitoes was hover- 
ing in the air near me. I called the fellow and reproved 
him for his laziness, and raising my voice to the mus- 
quito pitch of high E said: * If yon don't go and black 
the boots properly. Til have you stung to death by 
musquitoes.' The words were hardly uttered when the 
whole swarm came down upon him, causing him to flee 
in terror from the wizard, who had even the musquitoes 
at his command." In this purely musical language the 
tone varies slightly perhaps with the individual, but very 
perceptibly with the sex of the insect, the male having a 
somewhat higher note than the female. With every ad- 
vance in the ascending scale of animal life the power of 
expression increases, gradually ceasing to be a monoto- 
nous humor dull drone, and becoming considerably modu- 
lated and growing more and more articulate until it 
reaches its highest development in human speech. 
Great as may be the disparity between the squeak of a 
mouse, the chatter of a parrot, the roar of a gorilla, the 
gibberish of a Bushman, and the eloquence of a Demos- 
thenes, there is really no break in this long process of 
evolution corresponding to the growth of the intellectual 
faculties in the several species. Every creature has a 
language of its own composed of significant sounds in- 
telligible to its kind; and there is no point in the devel- 
opment of vocal utterance at which it can be said hitherto 
these sounds have been empty and unconceptual noises, 
henceforth they express the wants, emotions, and ideas of 
those who use them. 

Mr. James Weir, Jr., to whose special study of the 
senses of the lower animals reference has been made in 
a former chaper, says that, although ants are generally 
supposed to communicate with one another through their 



312 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

antennse, they may do so by means of sounds so low as 
to be inaudible to the human ear^ but adds that he has 
never been able to find in them either yocal organs or 
instruments of stridulation, such as the genus Gryllus 
possesses. The recent microscopical observations of 
M. Charles Janet, however, have led him to the conclu- 
sion that ants are provided with vocal organs, and he 
claims to have succeeded in ascertaining by the use of 
the microphone that they give utterance to a consider- 
able variety of tones, which he assumes to be expressive 
of different emotions. 

From a philological point of view Max Mliller has 
as slight consideration for beasts as for babies, taking 
every occasion to disparage the teachings of zoopsychol- 
ogy, and refusing, as he says, to argue with any philoso- 
pher " either in the nursery or in the menagerie/' 
Curiously enough, it now seems as though the possibili- 
ties of the menagerie in this direction had been strangely 
overlooked, and the ultimate elements of human speech, 
" phonetic cells," might yet be discovered in the mon- 
key's cage. About a dozen years have elapsed since Mr. 
E. L. Garner began his study of the language of quadru- 
mans in the Zoological Garden at Cincinnati.* Confined 
in a large cage with a number of smaller monkeys was a 
mandril endowed with all the ugly characteristics of his 
kind. This beast, which in its wild state is spoken of by 
the natives as the " forest devil," and which science has 

* Although Mr. Garner's researches have led to no definite re- 
sults, and he has been rather harshly characterized as " a sensa- 
tional charlatan," I prefer to let my remarks on his attempt to 
solve the problem of simian speech remain as they were originally 
written, since they could not be eliminated without impairing the 
general discussion of the subject. 



BAKRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 313 

named the " dog-headed horror ^' {Cynocephalus mor- 
mon), and whose habits of life justify both designations, 
is the most hideous in appearance, the most cruel in dis- 
position, the lewdest and wickedest of baboons. Per- 
haps in no other creature is " pure cussedness/' or the 
love of evil for evil's sake, so highly developed. It is the 
only animal, except man, that undermines its health and 
dies a premature death through excessive and unnatural 
indulgence of its lusts. Jardine reports the case of a 
mandril that, in becoming domesticated, took readily 
to the vices of civilization, brandy-drinking, and smoking, 
although it greatly preferred alcohol to tobacco. Broek- 
mann, however, succeeded not only in taming one, but 
also in overcoming its vicious propensities by a proper 
course of training. He taught it a variety of tricks, 
which it had to perform every day in an orderly manner 
and gradually took pride in performing well, thus prov- 
ing that if " idleness is the parent of vice," regular indus- 
try is the source of sobriety. The distinguished natural- 
ist Eeichenbach, who watched Broekmann's experiment 
with lively interest, was struck by the wonderful effect 
which the mere fact of having something definite to do 
produced in transforming the wildest and most wanton 
of baboons into a decent and quite companionable crea- 
ture. As the result of this systematic discipline, "its 
lower and purely animal propensities and carnal appe- 
tites, which tended to undermine its own existence, be- 
gan to calm, and ceased to be easily excited as its higher 
faculties were awakened and called into exercise, and as 
it was drawn upward through instruction and through 
love of the feats whose performance had kindled in it 
the first spark of mental activity and now kept its 
powers in a constant state of tension." Here we have an 



314 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

application of the same means that are used to civilize 
a savage or to train up a child in the way it should go; 
and Broekmann's success in curbing the cruel mandril 
of its will, elevating it socially into an agreeable and af- 
fectionate friend, and educating it histrionically to be 
the " star " of a monkey theatre, is not only a triumph 
of pedagogical patience and skill, but also a striking 
proof of the animal's latent capabilities. 

The mandril at Cincinnati was a savage brute which 
killed several of its less powerful associates and made the 
lives of the rest hardly worth living. They were never 
free from alarm and always on the alert to escape the as- 
saults of their common foe, whose movements they anx- 
iously watched and quickly reported to each other. Mr. 
Garner, who observed them day after day, soon became 
convinced that their cries and chatterings were not mere 
unconceptual noises or ejaculations inspired by individ- 
ual fear, but vocal expressions of ideas conveying definite 
information. He endeavoured to start a conversation 
by imitating these sounds, but the monkeys, although 
their attention was somewhat attracted by his utter- 
ances, evidently failed to comprehend his broken Simian, 
and in a short time ceased to pay heed to a creature who 
could not talk better than that. It then occurred to him 
to use the phonograph, which would not only reproduce 
these sounds with precision, but would also repeat them 
at pleasure and thus enable the human voice by persistent 
practice to articulate them distinctly. This plan was 
successful, and the monkeys showed by their actions 
that they clearly understood what the phonograph said. 
It is not necessary here to enter into the details of his 
subsequent experiments, the results of which he has 
-embodied in a volume; and although one may not accept 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 315 

some of his inferences, his researches all tend to confirm 
the assumption that monkeys have a language of their 
own, and that man can learn it and converse with them 
in their own tongue. Mr. Garner is now in the wilds of 
Africa, amply equipped with the instruments requisite 
for his personal safety and for the pursuit of his inves- 
tigations in the habitat of the gorilla and the chimpan- 
zee; and the fruits of the studies which he is carrying on 
under so favourable circumstances will be awaited with 
interest. Nomen et omen: may he return with a well- 
filled garner! 

Brehm remarked nearly twenty years ago : " The lan- 
guage of apes may be called quite rich; at least every ape 
has at its command a great variety of tones for the ex- 
pression of different emotions. Man also learns the 
significance of these sounds, which are difficult to describe 
and still more difficult to imitate." Indeed, without 
the aid of the phonograph it would have been impossible 
to determine their exact nature and to reduce them to 
a phonological system. This is an interesting illustra- 
tion of the far-reaching and beneficent influence of 
great inventions. The phonograph may yet render as 
valuable service to philology by extending the field of lin- 
guistic research as the microscope has rendered to medi- 
cine, and especially to bacteriology. 

It has been repeatedly asserted and generally ac- 
cepted that " no animal has the power of forming roots,^' 
and that there is " not one root in the language of ani- 
mals." This statement is sheer assumption, and for 
aught we know the very reverse of the proposition may 
be true and the language of animals consist chiefly, if 
not wholly, of roots. The origin of these constituent 
elements of language is a mystery. No philologist can 
21 



316 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOaY. 

tell how they arose or why they should convey one mean- 
ing rather than another^ except so far as their genesis 
may be explained in a few cases by onomatopoetic sug- 
gestion. The most natural supposition is that they are 
the heirlooms of the anthropoid race, which may have 
been transmitted to man from the semi-human primates 
of the Miocene age, already highly specialized enough to 
be capable of chipping flints. The beauty and force of 
human speech and its superiority to the utterances of 
brutes are due, not to the fact that it has its origin in 
roots, the very existence of which is overlooked by the 
great majority of men and detected only by philological 
analysis, but to its marvelous growth out of roots, to its 
grammatical and syntactical structure, its elaborate and 
complicated system of cases and tenses, the etymological 
relations of its parts, and the various means employed to 
express the nicest shades and most subtile suggestions of 
thought and feeling. It is this wonderful and never- 
ceasing evolution that makes human language what it 
is and distinguishes it from the extremely scanty and 
comparatively stationary language of all animals from 
the death-watch to the Dryopithecus. 

Reasoning from what we know of the language of 
apes, that of "the missing link" must have consisted 
mostly of monosyllabic sounds expressive of simple con- 
cepts, which, in proportion as his posterity reached a 
higher degree of intellectual development and became 
partially humanized, were gradually modified in mean- 
ing by prefixes and sufiSxes and organically correlated 
by inflection, until the original monosyllabic utterance, 
often perhaps little more than a short and sharp outcry, 
ceased to be used except in these derivative and differ- 
entiated forms. The root was thus merged and wholly 



BAERIER BETWEEN MAK AND BEAST. 317 

lost sight of ill the word, as is now the case with all hu- 
man tongues, where its existence is unsuspected, until 
the philologist grubs it up, I^o one maintains that 
human language was evolved in this manner out of that 
of the gorilla or chimpanzee or any other existing tribe 
of Simia, As the diiferent races of men are descended 
from different anthropoid species now^ extinct, so the 
diversity of tongues arose from the same cause. These 
anthropoid species or types died out because they were 
too nearly akin to man to compete with him in the strug- 
gle for existence; they could survive only by sharing in 
the advance of the race, and by sharing in it they ceased 
to be what they were; in either case they were doomed 
to disappear. 

In this connection we may refer again to the asser- 
tion of the identity of language and thought, or the state- 
ment that reasoning can not be carried on without words. 
If this principle be correct, it is rather queer that the most 
thoughtful persons should be, as a rule, the least wordy, 
or as Shakespeare says of Nature, ^*^ deep clerks she 
dumbs," as though it were one of her universal laws. 
Emotionally there are, as Wordsworth tells us, " thoughts 
too deep for words "; intellectually there are thinking 
processes, such as the abstract consideration of quantity 
and magnitude and their relations in pure mathematics, 
for the expression and realization of which words are 
far too clumsy and inexact, and recourse must be had to 
figures, algebraic characters, and arithmetical and geo- 
metrical formulas. On the other hand, there is a low 
stage of thought, which a few gestures or , exclamations 
are fully adequate to represent. Indeed, in Old Chinese, 
the archaic Kuan-hua, we have an extended literature 
recorded in what is essentially a language of signs, in- 



318 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

telligible to the eye but not to the ear, and having no 
grammatical connection or any relation to each other 
except propinquity. Sinograms, ideograms, and all 
hieroglyphics and picture-writing are relics of this early 
period in the evolution of alphabetical language. 

The beast, as well as man, is not confined to the use of 
what might be called its native tongue, but is capable 
of learning foreign languages. Not only do parrots, 
ravens, and other birds acquire considerable facility in 
human speech, but animals, in whidh the social instinct 
is strongly developed, adopt the means of communicat- 
ing thoughts employed by other animals with which 
they habitually associate. A striking example of this 
adaptation is given by Dr. Paul Carus: "If ants of a 
special kind rob the larvae of another kind and educate 
them as their slaves, the slaves will in case of war or dan- 
ger stand by their masters even against their own folks. 
They evidently speak the language of the hill in which 
they have been raised," just as children carried off in 
their infancy speak the language of the tribe in which 
they have been reared, and indeed as all persons speak 
the language of the community in which they have 
grown up. 

The question whether the roots of language ever ex- 
isted by themselves or whether any language could con- 
sist solely of roots may be " a foolish question " to the 
philologist, who does not dare to go beyond them; it is 
certainly a question which his methods will never solve. 
Less than a century ago there were eminent scholars who 
regarded the study of Sanskrit as a vain pursuit, and 
some denounced the language itself as a fabrication of 
cunning Brahmans. Even as late as 1820 the distin- 
guished Orientalist Silvestre de Sacy wrote to Bopp, 



BAKRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 319 

urging him to abandon this study as having no immediate 
relation to classical or theological studies; to-day every 
one knows that it has revolutionized these studies. The 
philologist no longer devotes himself exclusively to 
classical languages or even to those of civiUzed nations, 
but extends his researches to the dialects of barbarous 
tribes. Nevertheless there are still those who refuse to 
enlarge the borders of their science so as to include any 
of the lower animals, however intelligent, and obstinately 
reject all contributions from this quarter. Yet if we 
ever discover the origin of roots, it will probably be by 
searching for them in this direction. Least of all is it 
befitting an earnest and broad-minded scholar to treat 
such investigations with facetious flippancy, and to re- 
pudiate the conclusions of the zoopsychologist without 
having any profounder knowledge of the mental powers 
of animals than can be obtained by walking through a 
museum and contemplating the dry hides to which the 
taxidermist has given the semblance of life. 

The enthusiasm with which Mr. Garner has devoted 
himself to the study of simian speech, and the general 
interest excited by his discoveries, naturally suggest a 
comparison of his investigations with those of his pred- 
ecessors in this department of linguistic research. Per- 
haps the most serious and scientific attempt of this kind 
was made nearly a century ago by Gottfried Immanuel 
Wenzel, who published at Vienna, in 1808, a volume of 
216 pages entitled Neue auf Yernunft und Erfahrung 
gegrundete Entdeckungen liber die Sprache der Thiere 
(New Discoveries concerning the Language of Animals, 
based on Eeason and Experience), in which he main- 
tained that the lower animals are capable of expressing 
their thoughts and emotions by means of articulate 



320 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

sounds, and that these utterances are not only intelli- 
gible to their kind, hut may also he understood hy man,: 
indicated hy alphabetical signs, and thus reduced to 
writing. He made a list of the sounds uttered hy thirty 
different birds and beasts, and prepared a dictionary of 
more than twenty pages, to which he added a number 
of translations from animal into human speech. These 
so-called translations are very free, and give merely a 
paraphrastic statement of what he supposes to be the 
significance of certain canine and feline tones, the ver- 
sions being confined to his interpretations of the collo- 
quies of cats and dogs. As an illustration of his 
proficiency in this language and the practical value of 
such knowledge, he relates an incident, which sounds as 
though it might belong to the ancient and fabulous 
literature known to the Germans as Jagerlatein, or hun- 
ters^ Latin. He once went to visit a friend, who was a 
great huntsman, but on learning that he had gone out 
with his gun waited for him to return; meanwhile he 
took a book and sat down under a tree near a pen in 
which some foxes were confined. Suddenly he heard 
them utter certain sounds which according to his vocab- 
ulary were expressive of surprise and joy, and after 
listening for a time came to the conclusion that the foxes 
had discovered some means of escape and were exulting 
over the prospect of regaining their freedom. When 
the hunter returned, Wenzel informed him of what he 
had heard and advised him to look into the matter, but 
was only laughed at for his credulity and assured that the 
pen was perfectly secure. They went into the house, 
where they were taking some refreshments and talking 
about other affairs, when a servant rushed in greatly 
excited and announced that the foxes had escaped. 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 321 

Wenzel admits that the language of animals is ex- 
tremely simple and limited, and consequently monoto- 
nously repetitious; the same combination of sounds 
uttered with a stronger or weaker intonation serves to 
denote a variety of mental states and must he largely 
supplemented by lively pantomime. In conclusion, he 
has eighteen pages of what he calls an " animal pathog- 
nomonic-mimetic alphabet/^ showing the value and func- 
tion of each part of the physical organism, from the teeth 
to the tail, as a vehicle of expression. Dogs and cats 
fairly bristle with strong emotions, and birds show their 
ruffled feelings in their feathers and wax eloquent with 
their wings. Wenzel is convinced that every species of 
animal has its own dialect, which is to be regarded as a 
modification of the common or generic language of the 
race to which it belongs. Thus he seems to think that 
the zebra would understand the ass more readily than 
the horse, because the first two are more closely affiliated, 
although all three are endowed with equine speech. The 
same principle applies to the different varieties of the 
domestic hog in relation to other suilline quadrupeds. 

As an example of the extent to which animals may 
acquire a knowledge of human speech he prints a com- 
munication from a clergyman who had taught his dog to 
fetch books from his library in an adjoining room. 
" Fido," he would say, ^' on the table near the window 
are a quarto, an octavo, and a duodecimo; go and get the 
quarto." Fido never failed to bring the volume desig- 
nated. He had trained the dog to perform this service 
by showing him a book and saying very distinctly and 
repeatedly quarto, octavo, or duodecimo, and then laying 
it down in the library and making him fetch it. In the 
same manner the dog was taught to, bring many other 



322 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

objects, the names of which he seldom confounded or 
misunderstood. The clever animal could also be sent 
on errands. " Fido/^ the clergyman would say, " go to 
Mr. B. and tell him that I shall call upon him to-day.'^ 
Thereupon Fido ran to Mr. B.'s house and on finding 
him gave three short barks, which were perfectly intelli- 
gible to the person thus addressed. If any one called 
when the clergyman was out, Fido barked once; and he 
did the same if his master did not wish to be disturbed 
and bade him tell the caller that he was not at home. 
He announced a visitor by scratching on the door and 
barking twice. A Bavarian family at Munich has a dog 
that deems it highly improper for gentlemen to wear 
their hats in the house, but is sufficiently gallant not to 
find fault with ladies for doing so. An American, who 
wished to test the animal's discriminating sense of the 
fitness of things in this respect, entered the room and sat 
down with his hat on. The dog looked at him disapprov- 
ingly for a moment and then began to bark, with eyes 
intently fixed upon the hat. As the unmannerly visitor 
continued the conversation without paying any atten- 
tion to these admonitions, the dog sprang up and, seiz- 
ing the hat by the brim, pulled it off and quietly laid it 
on a chair. 

Wenzel also tells the story of a dog whom his master 
used to send to the market for meat, and who would 
stand before the kind of meat he was instructed to get, 
beef, mutton, or veal, and bark once, twice, or thrice, 
according to the number of pounds desired. The 
butcher filled the order, and the dog trotted home with 
his purchase and the cheerful consciousness of having 
done his duty. A still more remarkable case of this 
kind occurred recently in a German town, where tha 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 323 

dog went regularly to the market and always to the 
same stall. One day the animal took offence at some- 
thing and immediately transferred his custom to another 
stall. A few weeks later the owner of the dog met the 
first butcher and remarked that the meat, although a 
little cheaper, was not quite so good as formerly. 
" There must be some mistake," was the reply, " for 
I have not sold you any meat for a long time." This 
statement led to an investigation and final solution of 
the mystery, which created much amusement and ex- 
cited no little astonishment that canine minds could 
" such high resentment show." WenzeFs little book 
is full of interesting anecdotes illustrating his subject, 
and has a frontispiece representing a landscape, re- 
sembling the traditional pictures of the garden of Eden 
found in old Bibles, with an ape, a dog, a horse, and 
a bull in the foregTound, and the legend underneath: 
" They do not lie; their speech is truth." 

The French physicist, E. Eadeau, in a work on acous- 
tics, published in 1869, treats incidentally of the lan- 
guage of animals, which he thinks one could, by careful 
observation, learn to understand and even to speak with 
fluency. Mersenne, in his Harmonic Universelle, as- 
serts that men speak from a volitional impulse and 
utter vocal sounds in the exercise of a power of the mind 
which they are free not to exercise unless they choose to 
do so, whereas the lower animals use their voices under 
the influence of natural necessit}^, howling, shrieking, 
singing, etc., because under the circumstances they can 
not do otherwise, being subject to forces which they are 
absolutely unable to resist. The vexed question of the 
freedom or necessity of the will in human action, which 
metaphysics has vainly endeavoured to solve, has been 



324: ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

reopened by natural science and evolutionary biology 
and is now discussed on a broader basis and with the 
prospect of positive results. Whatever may be the final 
issue of these investigations, it is certain that the old 
Cartesian distinction between man and briite in this re- 
spect can no longer be maintained. Radeau is right in 
rejecting Mersenne's theory as involving a too subtile 
psychological distinction and in declaring that his doc- 
trine of natural necessity might be applied with equal 
force to many an inveterate gabbler who can not hold 
his tongue. 

In this connection he relates the following anecdote 
on the authority of Jules Richard: In 1857 this gentle- 
man had occasion to visit a sick friend in a hospital, 
where he made the acquaintance of an old official of the 
institution from the south of France, who was exceed- 
ingly fond of animals, his love of them being equalled 
only by his hatred of priests; he claimed also to be per- 
fectly familiar with the languages of cats and dogs, and 
to speak the language of apes even better than the apes 
themselves. Jules Richard received this statement 
with an incredulous smile, whereupon the old man, 
whose pride was evidently touched by such scepticism, 
invited him to come the next morning to the zoological 
garden. " I met him at the appointed time and place," 
says Mr. Richard, " and we went together to the mon- 
keys' cage, where he leaned on the outer railing and 
began to utter a succession of guttural sounds, which 
alphabetical signs are scarcely adequate to represent — 
' Kirruu, kirrikiu, kuruki, kirikiu ' — repeated with 
slight variations and differences of accentuation. In a 
few minutes the whole company of monkeys, a dozen in 
number, assembled and sat in rows before him with their 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 325 

hands crossed in tlieir laps or resting on their knees, 
langliing, gesticulating, and answering/^ The conver- 
sation continued for a full quarter of an hour, to the in- 
tense delight of the monkeys, who took a lively part in 
it. As their interlocutor was about to go away, they 
all became intensely excited, climbing up on the balus- 
trade and uttering cries of lamentation; when he finally 
departed and disappeared more and more from their 
view, they ran up to the top of the cage and clinging to 
the frieze made motions as if they were bidding him 
good-bye. It seemed, adds Mr. Eichard, as though 
they wished to say, " We are sorry to part and hope to 
meet again, and if you can't come, do drop us a line! " 
K'o one who has ever observed the actions and lis- 
tened to the utterances of a clever parrot will accept Mer- 
senne's assertion that the exercise of the vocal organs 
of animals is not free, but subject to natuial and irre- 
sistible necessity, or that speech is in a greater degree 
the product of inevitable causation in the mouth of the 
cockatoo than in that of the cockney. Humboldt states 
that after the Aturians on the Orinoco had become ex- 
tinct, the only creature that could speak their language 
was a very aged parrot, condemned by adverse fortune 
to spend the remnant of its days in comparative solitude 
as the sad survivor of a once powerful tribe. From a 
philological point of view, the venerable bird was as in- 
teresting a character as the old Cornish woman with 
whose decease, some years ago, the dialect of her people 
ceased to be a spoken tongue. It is also a historical fact 
that when, in 1509, the Spanish freebooters Xicuesa and 
Ojeda wished to surprise the village of Yurbaco, on the 
Isthmus of Darien, in order to capture a cargo of slaves, 
the vigilant parrots in the tops of the trees announced 



326 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

the approach of the enemy, and thus enabled the inhab- 
itants to escape. 

Perhaps the most cultivated and certainly the most 
celebrated parrot of which we have any record belonged 
from 1830 to 1840 to a canon of the cathedral of Salz- 
burg, named Hanikl, who gave the bird regular instruc- 
tion twice a day, from nine to ten in the morning and 
from ten to eleven in the evening. The parrot made 
rapid progress in the development of its mental facul- 
ties, and soon showed what a remarkable degree of in- 
telligence it is possible for such a creature to attain 
under systematic tuition. The sayings and doings of 
this parrot which lived fourteen years after HanikFs 
death and died in 1854, have been reported by a number 
of careful and competent observers and are unquestion- 
ably authentic. One day, as some one entered the room, 
it cried out in a harsh tone, " Where do you come from ? " 
On seeing that the person was an ecclesiastical dignitary, 
it added, apologetically: " Oh, I beg pardon of your 
Grace; I thought it was a bird." It took part in gen- 
eral conversation, and was sometimes so loquacious that 
it had to be told to stop; it was also fond of talking to it- 
self, and imagining all sorts of exciting scenes: " Beat 
me, will you? Beat me, will you? Oh, you rascal! 
Yes, yes, that's the way of the world." It whistled 
tunes and sang various popular songs, and even learned 
an entire aria from Flotow's opera of Martha. 

A parrot of the same species (Psittacus erithacus), 
ash-gray, with scarlet-red tail, is now in the possession 
of M. Mcaise, a member of the Anthropological Society 
of Paris. This bird is nearly fifty years of age, and en- 
dowed with wonderful versatility of intellect. It 
imitates to perfection all the calls and cries of the street, 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 327 

and when in 1870 it was sent away from the beleaguered 
cit}^ into the country^ it came back with its repertory im- 
mensely enlarged, having learned to reproduce the 
whistle of the quail, the hoot of the owl, the merry 
scream of the magpie, the crow of the cock, the cluck of 
the hen, and the tones of a great variety of wild birds 
and domestic fowls and quadrupeds. One of its histri- 
onic masterpieces is the phonetic representation of the 
killing of a pig which it witnessed nearly a quarter of a 
century ago, but of which it has not forgotten a single 
characteristic grunt or squeal. Nothing is omitted, 
from the deep gutturals, alternating with piercing 
shrieks, as the porker is dragged to the place of slaughter, 
to the last faint groan of the dying animal. Indeed, 
the reproduction of the scene is so intolerably realistic, 
that the persons present are fain to stop their ears and to 
bid the bird keep silence. It listens attentively to any 
conversation that is going on, and expresses its approval 
or astonishment by exclaiming "Oh!" or "Ah!" and 
always at the appropriate time or place. If any one tells 
a funny story or gets off a joke, it laughs with the rest of 
the company, although this outburst of merriment is 
doubtless due, not so much to a humorous appreciation 
of what is said, as to the contagion of the general hilarity. 
When it wants something, it calls its mistress by her 
Christian name, Marie, and, if she does not come at once, 
calls her again with a sharp tone of impatience. Once, 
when a firebrand fell on the hearth and filled the room 
with smoke, it cried, "Marie! Marie!" in a voice in- 
dicating extreme anxiety and alarm. This parrot is a 
provident creature, and when taking its dinner always 
lays aside a piece of bread and jam for its supper, thus 
showing that it has the power of looking before and after, 



328 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

wliicli Shakespeare deems a peculiarly human attribute. 
It not only sings songs correctly^ but also improvises 
musical compositions^ which it renders each time with 
new variations, and performs, as M. Mcaise assures us, 
" with a taste and style and spirit that might excite the 
envy of any pupil of the conservatory.'^ The fact that 
these pieces invariably close on the tonic or keynote 
proves that all the modulations are referred to the fun- 
damental tone of the chord, and gives evidence of a 
musical feeling and sense of harmony such as only hu- 
man beings are usually supposed to possess. These im- 
provisations are whistled, and sound as though they were 
played by a flute, the performance being uniformly 
preluded with runs and trills and other vocalizations. 

The parrot is an exception to the rule that the period 
of infancy is longest in the most intelligent creatures. 
Its babyhood is, in fact, very short, although its average 
life seems to be somewhat longer than that of a man. It 
attains the full splendour of its plumage and is pubes- 
cent at the early age of two, and often survives all the 
members of the human family in which it has been 
reared, outliving even the children much younger than 
itself. During all this time it retains its mental plas- 
ticity and progressiveness, never ceases to learn, and goes 
on developing its inborn capacities from the beginning to 
the end of its prolonged existence. It is quite as in- 
quisitive as the monkey, and quite as capable of close and 
continued observation. Merely through its association 
with man it is constantly making new acquisitions of 
knowledge, and there is no telling what might not be ac- 
complished in this direction by systematic instruction 
carried on through successive generations. 

If Mr. Garner's object had been to ascertain how far 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 329 

animals can acquire the use of human speech and what 
effect such discipline would have in enlarging their in- 
tellectual faculties, he would have done better to choose 
parrots instead of monkeys for his experiments; but 
as his purpose is to learn the language of animals, and not 
to teach them his own, he has done well to select apes 
as the objects of his study. It must be confessed, how- 
ever, that the results of his investigations, embodied in 
his volume recently published, are rather disappointing, 
and are, in fact, less comprehensive, although doubtless 
more accurate, than the observations made by Wenzel at 
the beginning of the present century. He is prone to 
lay great stress upon matters that are really of no im- 
portance whatever, as, for example, when he discovers 
that " 1^0 " accompanied by a shake of the head is the 
sign of negation, and adds, " The fact that this sign is 
common to both man and simian I regard as more than 
a mere coincidence, and I believe that in this sign I have 
found the psycho-physical basis of expression.^' It is 
difficult to perceive how a logical thinker could draw 
such a sweeping conclusion from so slight premises. If 
he finds that gorillas and chimpanzees in their native 
wilds, unaffected by human associations, express dissent 
by shaking their heads and shouting " No! " it will be a 
fact well worth recording. 

Mr. Garner's superiority to his predecessors in this 
department of linguistic research consists in the greater 
excellence of his material rather than of his mental 
equipment. The possession of the phonograph alone 
gives him an immense advantage in this respect, by en- 
abling him to record and to repeat the utterances of 
monkeys with perfect accuracy. Armed with this 
scientific weapon of phonetic precision and all the instru- 



330 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

ments and appliances which modern invention has placed 
at his disposal^ he may perhaps completely conquer a 
province of investigation hitherto but partially explored, 
and, by making important contributions to zooglottology 
and working ont a system of alphabetical signs for the 
language of the anthropoid race, become the Cadmus 
of the simian world.* 



* According to the latest reports, Mr. Garner has returned 
from his expedition without having realized the exalted hopes ex- 
cited by his elaborate preparations and the somewhat sensational 
announcement of his programme, published on the eve of his de- 
parture in The North American Review. In an address delivered 
before the Societe de Geographic in Paris, on May 4, 1894, the 
African explorer Dybowski took occasion to refer to Mr. Garner's 
sojourn in the jungles of the Congo for the purpose of learning 
the language of the gorillas from their own lips. Dybowski 
stated that he himself had passed two days at the mission of Fer- 
nand Vaz, situated on the shore of the lake bearing the same 
name. The superior. Father Bichet, informed him that Mr. Gar- 
ner had spent three months there — not in the depth of the forest, 
but at the mission itself — evidently preferring the society of the 
monks to that of the monkeys. Mr. Garner brought with him his 
famous cage " of steel wire woven into a diamond-shaped lattice," 
and set it up at a place called Fort Gorillas, on the edge of the 
forest, just twenty-eight minutes' walk from the mission and within 
hearing of the church bells. Dybowski expresses a doubt whether 
" the apes, however strong their instincts of civilization, ever came 
so near the convent to perform their religious devotions." The 
negro boy Rozounge, a youth about thirteen or fourteen years of 
age, who speaks French very well and accompanied Mr. Garner on 
his excursions, confirmed the statements of Father Bichet, and 
added that Mr. Garner had slept three nights in the cage, where 
he awaited in vain the visits of the chimpanzees and gorillas. The 
boy thinks they heard them one evening, and that is the extent of 
Mr. Garner's intercourse with these great anthropoid apes in their 
wild state. He succeeded, however, in buying a young chimpan- 
zee, which he named Moses, but which soon died. He afterward 



BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 331 

expended sixteen dollars in the purchase of a young gorilla, which 
survived only a few days. He then left the mission, where he had 
paid five francs a day for board and lodging, and set out with 
Father Buleon, of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost, on a tour 
to the Eschiras, a tribe of the interior. After two days' travel he 
was taken with a severe pain in his legs, and had to be borne in a 
hammock to the Tomlinson factory, where he remained two 
months. On recovery he embarked for Europe, taking with him 
his cage and the elements of his dictionary of the simian tongue. 
Dybowski says that the phonograph which was to catch the 
sounds uttered by the apes and to record them on a cylinder never 
arrived, so that Mr. Garner had to carry on his investigations 
without the aid of this instrument. Dybowski's remarks on this 
subject were reported in the Paris Figaro, and have been published 
in other papers — e. g., in The Nation, June 14, 1894. The French 
journal characterizes Mr. Garner as an amateur in linguistics, who 
has succeeded in having himself taken seriously, but who proves 
to be " un simple fumiste.'' It is hardly possible that these state- 
ments should have escaped Mr. Garner's notice, and the fact that 
he has made no reply to them is a tacit admission of their correct- 
ness. This utter failure to accomplish what he set out to do *is 
greatly to be regretted, inasmuch as the line of his researches was 
in the right direction, although they might have been more suc- 
cessfully pursued in a zoological garden than in the wilds of Africa 
or at a missionary station on Lake Fernand Vaz. 

Those who may have condemned Dybowski's strictures as too 
severe will find them fully justified by Mr. Garner's own relation 
©f his experiences and observations recorded in his recently pub- 
lished volume Gorillas and Chimpanzees. The only original dis- 
covery he seems to have made is that of the armadillo, hitherto 
supposed to be peculiar to South America. We venture to assert 
that the one he saw will probably prove to be the sole specimen of 
the Dasypus sexcinatus existing in tropical Africa. His work 
does not contain a single noteworthy contribution to simian 
speech. Indeed, it is diificult to determine the exact field of his 
labours by consulting any map of the country, and the fact that 
letters were delivered to him in his cage would imply that the 
postman was abroad, and indicate that his camp was not far from 
the outskirts of civilization. 

In a communication to an English paper on his return from 
23 



332 ANIMAL TSYCHOLOGY. 

Africa Mr. Garner speaks of conferences with gorillas, and adds : 
" My preliminary understanding of the sounds uttered by my 
anthropoid visitors was that their government is strictly patri- 
archal and that they have some fixed idea of order and justice." 
This theory of the organization of the simian horde is not new, 
but it is the first time that positive information on the subject has 
been received directly from the mouths of the Simia themselves. 
The gorillas must have been in a very confiding mood, or they 
would not have imparted this knowledge to a perfect stranger. 
Perhaps their communicativeness was the result of hypnotic sug- 
gestion, for in a letter published in an Australian journal, the 
Sydney Daily News, Mr. Garner states that on one occasion he 
placed his battery with a phonograph and a revolving mirror in a 
banyan grove and concealed himself about sixty metres distant. 
A crowd of chattering monkeys soon gathered round the glittering 
mirror. Mr. Garner observed them for more than an hour and 
then emerging from his hiding place cautiously approached. No 
sooner did they see him than they all disappeared as by magic 
with the exception of one chimpanzee, which stood perfectly 
still, staring at the mirror, while a slight tremor ran through its 
limbs and its ears gave a convulsive twitch. " I could hardly be- 
lieve my eyes ; the monkey was hypnotized." As the chimpanzee 
kept saying " aclirur which means sun in the anthropoid tongue, 
one might suggest that this animal was a sun-worshipper in an 
ecstasy of devotion at the supposed descent of its god to the earth. 
There is no limit to hypotheses in such cases. Mr. Garner's men- 
tion of the phonograph can be reconciled with the positive state- 
ments of Dybowski and the French missionaries only by assuming 
that this apparatus arrived after he left Fernand Vaz. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE ESTHETIC SENSE AND RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT IN 
ANIMALS. 

The assthetic sense as a distinction between man brute. Man's ar- 
tistic faculty the mark of his pre-eminence according to Wilks, 
Huxley, Prantl, and Schiller. Herbart recognises no such line 
of separation. The influence of infancy. Value of flexible 
organs of prehension. Appreciation of the beautiful shown by 
birds. Fondness of finery. Decorative taste of the bower 
bird. Nests of the weaver, oriole, titmouse, and japu. Love 
of music in birds and insects. Musical training of unmusical 
birds. Beethoven and the spider. The cicada as a violinist. 
Musical performances of apes in their native wilds. Exhibi- 
tion of musical preferences by dogs. Musical concerts by 
mammals and birds. Hudson's observations in La Plata. 
Propagation of plants dependent upon a sense of colour in in- 
sects. Religious sentiment of animals recognised by De Qua- 
trefages and Darwin. Fetichistic conceptions formed by the 
higher animals. Striking examples given by Herbert Spencer 
and Romanes. Sense of the supernatural in horses and dogs. 
A haunted canary cage. Second sight and ghost-seeing at- 
tributed by popular belief to dogs, horses, and storks. Reli- 
gion as a natural growth has its roots in animal intelligence. 

De. Wilks reduces the chief difference between man 
and brute to the " smallness of knowledge of the fine arts 
possessed by the latter "; and a passing remark made by 
Prof. Huxley, in one of his essays, would seem to imply a 
disposition to draw the line of separation between animal 

333 



334 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

and human intelligence at this point. Prantl regards 
the phrase " die Kunsttriebe der Thiere " as a metaphor- 
ical expression involving a confusion of terms, since ani- 
mals, with all their apparent artistic ability and taste 
shown in constructing and decorating their habitations, 
do not seek to embody ideas in material forms — an as- 
sumption which begs the very question in dispute. 
Schiller, in his well-known poem. Die Kiinstler, makes 
man^s pre-eminence consist solely in his artistic faculty: 

In Fleiss kann dich die Biene meistern, 

In der Geschicklichkeit ein Wurm dein Lehrer sein, 

Dein Wissen theilest du mit vorgezogenen Geistern, 
Die Kunst, o Mensch, hast du allein. 

In diligence the bee can master thee, 
In skilfulness a worm thy teacher be, 
Knowledge thou dost with higher spirits own, 
But art, O man, thou dost possess alone. 

Herbart, as we have already seen, does not recognise 
this demarcation. " If one asks for a specific character- 
istic of mankind, which is not physical, but spiritual, 
original and universal, and does not resolve itself 
into a more or less, I confess," he says, " that I do not 
know of any such distinction and do not think it exists," 
He then enumerates the advantages possessed by man — 
namely, hands, speech, and a long and helpless infancy, 
to the use and influence of which are due the extraor- 
dinary growth of the human brain in size and complexity 
and the corresponding development of intellectual power. 
In the acuteness of his senses and in many peculiarities 
of physical structure man is inferior to some of the lower 
animals. He has not, says Prof. Cope, kept pace with 
other mammals in the development of his teeth, which 



THE ESTHETIC SENSE. 335 

are " thoroughly primitive " ; his nose is less service- 
able than that of the dog; the eagle has a far better eye; 
the ankle joint of the sheep is, as a piece of mechanism, 
stronger and less liable to derangement than the corre- 
sponding joint in man; the horse's foot consists of a 
single compact elastic toe, on which the animal runs 
while its heel is carried in the air and never touches the 
ground, thus attaining a springiness and swiftness of 
motion beyond the reach of the human plantigrade. 
Whatever lightness and elasticity of step man possesses 
is due less to the perfection of his bodily organism than 
to the uplifting influence of his intellect. With the 
decay of his mental powers Homo sapiens slouches like 
a bear, as may be observed in the ungainly and unsteady 
gait of cretins and idiots, however vigorous they may be 
physically. 

The objection urged by Prof. Kedny against the doc- 
trine of evolution — namely, that man's helpless infancy 
proves him to be different in kind from other animals — 
ignores the fact that the soko and many other species of 
the genus Simia pass through a period of infant help- 
lessness almost as long as that of some savage tribes. The 
babyhood of the anthropoid apes is much longer and 
more helpless than that of the cynopithecoids, the platy- 
rhines, or the lemurs; and the higher the order of the 
monkeys, the more they resemble man in this respect. 
Mr. Wallace captured a young orang-outang, which had 
to be fed and cared for like a human infant, lay rolling 
on the ground with all fours in the air, and could hardly 
walk when it was three months old; whereas a macacus 
of the same age seemed to have already acquired full use 
of its limbs and mental faculties. The long duration of 
this complete dependence on parental care in the case of 



336 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOaY. 

the human infant^, so far from disproving the doctrine of 
evolution, furnishes one of the strongest arguments in 
its favour, since it helps to explain how man gradually 
attained his intellectual primacy among the primates. 
The American platyrhines, marmosets, and other smaller 
long-tailed monkeys reach maturity in three or four 
years, whereas the African dog-headed apes require ten 
or twelve years for their full development, and with the 
larger anthropoids this period of growth is nearly as long 
as with human heings. 

The fact that quadrumans have flexihle organs of 
prehension, can grasp and handle things and imitate 
human actions, gives them a great advantage over quad- 
rupeds. A dog may he as intelligent as a chimpanzee, 
but he is unable to " show off " as well; he can not un- 
tie knots with his paws, nor put on clothes, nor eat with 
knife and fork, nor uncork bottles, nor drink wine by 
lifting the glass to his lips, nor use a toothpick, nor per- 
form a variety of tricks which make the monkey appear 
to be relatively far more richly endowed with mental 
gifts than is actually the case, and throw into the shade 
the most conspicuous exploits of the poodle and the 
collie. 

]!^evertheless, this manual and digital dexterity can 
scarcely be overestimated as a means of disciplining the 
mind and increasing the volume of the brain; and if 
chimpanzees, orang-outangs, and sokos had enjoyed the 
thousands of years of domestication and thorough breed- 
ing and training, from which dogs have so immensely 
profited, there is no knowing what advances in knowl- 
edge and acquisitions of intellectual culture they might 
not have made. It is wonderful how much they learn 
through observation and very slight instruction during 



THE AESTHETIC SENSE. 337 

a few months' intercourse with human beings, discharg- 
ing with evident pleasure the duties of body servant or 
waiter, answering the door bell, showing visitors into 
the parlour, fetching water, kindling the fire, washing 
dishes, turning the spit, and doing all sort of chores in 
and about the house. '' Such an ape," says Brehm, " one 
can not treat as a beast, but must associate with as a man. 
Notwithstanding all the peculiarities it exhibits, it re- 
veals in its nature and conduct so very much that is hu- 
man, that one quite forgets the animal. Its body is that 
of a brute, but its intelligence is almost on a level with 
that of a common boor. It is absurd to attribute the 
actions of such a creature to unthinking imitation; it 
imitates to be sure, but as a child imitates an adult, with 
understanding and judgment." 

That the plastic and progressive period of the mon- 
key's individual development is short, and that its facul- 
ties become set and stationary at a comparatively early 
age, is undeniable; but the same holds true of the negro, 
who loses his educability and ceases his mental growth 
much earlier than the Caucasian. The longer or shorter 
duration of this formative season in the mental life of 
man is, to some extent, a matter of race, but in a still 
greater degree the result of civilization. 

The hand is also a valuable instrument for the culti- 
vation of the aesthetic sense, and the more flexible and 
sensitive this instrument becomes, the greater are the 
results achieved by it in this direction. But there are 
animals without hands that show an appreciation of the 
beautiful. Mr. Darwin has proved conclusively that 
birds take pleasure in sweet sounds and in brilliant 
colours, and that the sentiment thus awakened and ap- 
pealed to plays an important part in the preservation 



338 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

and perfection of the species through natural selection.. 
The struggle for existence is not always carried on by 
fierce combat and the triumph of brute force, but quite as 
frequently takes the form of competition in beauty, ad- 
dressing itself either to the ear as alluring song or to the 
eye as attractive plumage; and the bird that possesses 
these characteristics in the highest degree carries off the 
prize in the tournament of love, and propagates its kind. 

There is no doubt that birds take delight in the gor- 
geousness of their own feathers, and the more brilliant 
their hues the greater the vanity they display. Con- 
spicuous examples of this love of admiration and fond- 
ness of parading their finery are the peacock and the 
bird of paradise. 

The decoration of its boudoir by the bower bird, as 
described by Mr. Gould in his History of the Birds of 
New South Wales, indicates a decided and discrimina- 
tive preference for bright and variegated objects, and 
evinces no small amount of aesthetic feeling and artistic 
taste in selecting and arranging them. The bower is built 
of sticks and slender twigs gracefully interwoven, so 
that the tapering points meet at the top, and is adorned 
with the rose-coloured tail feathers of the inca cockatoo 
and the gay plumes of other parrots, tinted shells, 
bleached bones, rags of divers hues, and whatever gaudy 
or glittering trinkets may please the bird's fancy. Some- 
times the space in front of the bower is covered with 
half a bushel of things of this sort, laid out like a par- 
terre with winding walks, in which the happy possessor 
of the garnered treasures struts about with the pride and 
pleasure of a connoisseur in a gallery of paintings, or a 
bibliophile who has his shelves filled with incunabula and 
other rare editions. These objects have often been 



THE ESTHETIC SENSE. 339 

brought from a great distance, and are of no possible 
use to the bird except as they gratify its love of the 
beautiful and appeal to what we call in man the aesthetic 
sense. Its conduct can be explained in no other way; 
for the bower is not a nest in which eggs are laid and 
hatched and young ones reared; it is a salon or place of 
social entertainment, and thus serves a distinctly ideal 
purpose. 

A similar artistic talent is shown by the African and 
Asiatic varieties of weaver, which suspend their nests 
from the slender branches of trees over running water 
.and thus render them inaccessible to monkeys and other 
plundering foes; sometimes, too, they weave into them 
long thorns with the points turned outwards, so that their 
house becomes a castle and resembles a fortress bristling 
with bayonets. It is also a significant fact that the nests 
of young birds are loosely and clumsily built and not 
constructed to perfection until the third year, proving 
that their skill is a gradual acquirement, something 
learned, to a certain extent, by practice and instruction, 
and not purely instinctive. Among Western repre- 
sentatives of this class of bird artists the Baltimore oriole, 
the European titmouse (Parus pendulinus), and the 
Brazilian japu are the most noteworthy. 

The singing of birds, as a means of sexual attraction, 
implies a certain appreciation of melody. Indeed, many 
of them do not confine themselves to the songs of their 
species, but learn notes from other birds and snatches of 
tunes from musical instruments. Canaries can be taught 
a variety of airs by playing them repeatedly on a piano 
or on a hurdy-gurdy. They listen with attention and 
imitate the strains which take their fancy. If harmony 
or the concord of sweet sounds, as distinguished from 



340 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOaY. 

melody or the simple succession of sweet sounds, does not 
enter into bird music, the same may be said of the music 
of primitive man and of all early nations. Savages, like 
feathered songsters, sing in unison, but not in accord. 

There are also some remarkable instances of the mu- 
sical education of unmusical birds, so that they learn songs 
wholly foreign to their species. A recent case of this 
kind occurred at the little town of Tannendorf, in the 
principality of Eeuss, in Germany. It is well known 
that the sparrow has naturally no gift of song, but keeps 
up a tedious and often intolerable chirping; at the same 
time it is by no means a stupid bird. An invalid soldier 
of Tannendorf, named Pfeifer, succeeded in training 
one of these birds into a very superior songster, which 
took the first prize for its vocal powers at the ex- 
hibition of the Ornithological Society " Ornis," held 
at Leipsic in February, 1896. Isaak Walton says 
the nightingale " breathes such sweet, loud music out of 
her little instrumental throat, that it might make man- 
kind to think that miracles are not ceased." But the 
miracle is still greater when such " sweet descants " come 
from the throat of the sparrow, whose natural notes are 
so shrill and monotonous. This incident is a striking 
proof of the musical capabilities of the unmusical pas- 
serine family, and shows what wonderful results may be 
attained by the patient development of the faculties of 
the lower animals. We may add that one of the jurors 
who awarded the prize to Pfeifer's sparrow was Prof. 
Goring, of Gera, well known for his scientific explorations 
in Brazil. 

Spiders, locusts, and lizards show a decided love of 
musical tones whether produced by themselves for the 
purpose of sexual attraction or by the human voice and 



THE ESTHETIC SENSE. 341 

performers on instruments. It is related of Beethoven 
that when in his boyhood he was learning the violin in 
his room, a spider used to let itself down from the ceil- 
ing on the instrument and remain there so long as he 
kept on playing. One day his mother entered the room 
and seeing the spider in its accustomed place obeyed the 
instincts of a careful housewife and killed it, whereupon 
the youthful Ludwig, angry at this brutal treatment of 
his silent and attentive auditor, flung his fiddle on the 
floor and smashed it. Beethoven was once questioned 
as to the truth of this statement and declared that he 
had no recollection of any such incident, but, on the con- 
trary, had good reason to believe that every living crea- 
ture, including flies and spiders, would have got as far 
as possible away from his horrid gratings on the catgut. 
The tale in this case may be a fiction, but authentic in- 
stances of this Idnd have occurred and been recorded by 
musicians. 

It is possible, however, that the apparent fondness of 
spiders for music and their supposed partiality for the 
tones of stringed instruments may be due to the resem- 
blance of such noises to the buzzing of files when caught 
in a web. This explanation, if it be correct, would throw 
a blur upon the evidence adduced in proof of the sesthetic 
endowments of the Araclmida, and show that they are 
" not moved with concord of sweet sounds," but rather 
by their eagerness for prey, and are therefore " fit for 
treason, stratagems, and spoils." Thus, for example, 
during a concert in the celebrated Gewandhaus at Leip- 
sic. Prof. Eeclam watched the movements of a spider, 
which let itself down from a chandelier when the violin 
solos were performed, but hurried back and disappeared 
as soon as the full orchestra began to play. The illusion 



342 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

of the buzzing fly was suddenly dissipated by the clangour 
of trumpets, the rattle of drums, the clash of cjrmbals, 
and the deep notes of the ophicleide and trombone. 

It is true, however, that certain species of spiders pro- 
duce musical tones and seem to take pleasure in them. 
This is the case with the gigantic spider of Central Aus- 
tralia, known to zoologists as Phridis crassipes. Ac- 
cording to recent observations made by Prof. Baldwin 
Spencer, it is from six to seven centimetres long and 
measures twelve centimetres between the extremities of 
its legs. By rubbing its feelers against a comblike set 
of bristles on the back part of its body, it brings forth 
sounds that in a still night may be heard for a distance 
of two or three metres. 

In some charming verses entitled The Lark (Die 
Lerche) a Westphalian poetess, Annette von Droste- 
Hiilfshoff, gives a vivid description of a spring morning 
on a North German heath and the orchestral perform- 
ance, in which the cricket plays the kit, the beetle the 
horn, the gnat the triangle, and the bumblebee the 
bass viol: 

So tausendstimmig stieg noch nie ein Chor, 
Wie's musicirt aus grunem Held hervor. 

The Greeks ascribed to the cicada {t4ttl$) a beauti- 
ful voice (<^a>i/?7), which seems to have been to their 
ear the synonym and supreme ideal of melodiousness. 
Plato calls this insect the prophet of the Muses, and 
Anacreon extols it as the divinest of singers. Only the 
males were supposed to be endowed with this fine vocal 
gift, hence the witty suggestion of Xenarchos that men 
might well envy the happiness of the Cicadse, whose fe- 
males are dumb (wv rat? ywai^iv ov8' otlovv cjjwvrj? o/t). As 



THE ESTHETIC SENSE. 343 

a matter of fact, the cicada has no voice at all, but is 
a superior violinist, and always carries with him his 
fiddle organically attached to his person. The recent 
investigations of the entomologists Vitus Graber and 
Brunner von Wattenwyl have first given a clear idea 
of the construction of this musical apparatus and the 
manner of its use. The arrangement and the mode 
of operation differ somewhat in different species. Per- 
haps the purest violin tones are produced by the Lo- 
custa cantans, popularly known in some parts of Europe 
as the "harvest bird." The male is an unwearied 
w^ielder of the fiddle stick, and the female will listen for 
hours with evident rapture to his performances. She, 
too, possesses rudimentary organs of the same kind, but 
they are visible only under the microscope and not suffi- 
ciently developed to produce tones. Clearly her musical 
education has been neglected and she has not made the 
most of the gifts with which Nature has endowed her; 
but as a good listener she is unrivalled, and finds ample 
opportunity to cultivate this rare and amiable talent. 

Not only do some species of monkeys, like the chim- 
panzees and sokos, get up concerts of their own in the 
depths of the forest, but dogs, which are generally sup- 
posed to be decidedly unmusical, also discriminate be- 
tween tunes and express their preferences or aversions 
in an unmistakable manner. A friend of mine, who 
had a magnificent St. Bernard dog, was fond of playing 
the violoncello. The dog used to lie quietly in the room 
with closed eyes, and appeared to pay no attention to 
the music until his master struck up a certain tune, 
when the dog immediately and invariably sat up on his 
haunches and began to howl. If the tune which called 
forth such emotions had been written on a very high 



34:4: ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

key, or characterized by shrill tones or harsh dissonances, 
the conduct of the dog might be easily explained. But 
such was not the case. There was nothing in this piece 
more than in any other, so far as any one could observe, 
that ought to grate the canine ear. Many incidents of 
this kind might be cited to prove that even dogs are not 
indifferent to musical compositions, and show a nice dis- 
crimination between them, having their likes and dis- 
likes, as well as human beings. 

Indeed, the howling of a dog under such circum- 
stances is no proof that the sounds are painful to him; on 
the contrary, it is probably his manner of expressing his 
appreciation of them. The noise he makes may be 
disagreeable to us, just as his sharp bark often is, but 
this is no reason why it should not be an utterance of 
joy. More than half a century ago, the zoopsychologist 
Scheitlin suggested that the dog takes pleasure in the 
musical tones, and merely wishes to accompany the per- 
former. If they were so discordant as to be distressful to 
him, he could leave the room; but he has never been 
known to seek relief in this manner. It is also certain 
that he imitates in some degree what he hears, and that 
the howls stimulated by the lengthened notes of the 
organ differ from those excited by the piano, the violin, 
or the human voice. The Eev. A. Treiber, a clergyman 
in Eichen near Eppingen, Germany, states that when 
a student in the university he had a female poodle named 
Eolla, who was very fond of singing with him. Thus, 
for example, if he began to sing the Lorelei, especially 
in falsetto, Eolla would strike in, and one could easily 
perceive how she would try to catch the tune by follow- 
ing, though not very successfully, the ascending and 
descending notes of the melody. Still more striking 



THE ESTHETIC SENSE. 345 

instances of tliis kind are given by Alix (L'Esprit de nos 
Betes, p. 364 sq.), of several poodles that sang the scale 
perfectly, and one that " sang very agreeably a magnifi- 
cent piece by Mozart/' This remarkable dog belonged 
to Habeneck, the director of the Paris opera, and not 
only had the superior advantage of living in a musical 
atmosphere, but had also received special musical in- 
struction.* We know that the imitative impulse in 
dogs, and more particularly in poodles, is very strong, 
and there is no reason why it should not extend to the 
imitation of articulate and musical tones, so far as the 
structure of the vocal organs render their reproduction 
possible. That there is also an element of aesthetic 
gratification in such performances would seem to be 
evident from the fact that some tones are imitated in 
preference to others. 

" Mammals and birds," says a recent writer, " possess 
the habit of indulging frequently in more or less regular 
or set performances, with or without sound, or composed 
exclusively of sound; and these performances, which in 
many animals are only discordant cries and choruses, 
and uncouth, irregular motions, in the more aerial, grace- 
ful, and melodious kinds take immeasurably higher, more 
complex, and more beautiful forms. . . . We see that the 
inferior animals, when the conditions of life are favour- 
able, are subject to periodical fits of gladness, affecting 
them powerfully and standing out in vivid contrast to 
their ordinary temper. And we know what this feeling 
is — this periodic intense elation which even civilized 
man occasionally experiences when in perfect health, 
and more especially when yoimg. There are moments 

* Cf. Karl Groos, Die Spiele der Thiere, p. 183. 



346 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

when he is mad with joy, when he can not keep still, when 
his impulse is to sing and shout aloud and laugh at noth- 
ing, to run and leap and exert himself in some extrava- 
gant way. Among the heavier mammalians the feeling 
is manifested in loud noises, bellowings, and screamings, 
and in lumbering, uncouth motions — throwing up of 
heels, pretended panics, and ponderous mock battles. In 
smaller and livelier animals, with greater celerity and 
certitude in their motions, the feeling shows itself in 
more regular and often more complex ways. ... Birds 
are more subject to this universal joyous instinct than 
mammals, and there are times when some species are con- 
stantly overflowing with it; and as they are so much 
freer than mammals, more buoyant and more graceful 
in action, more loquacious, and have voices so much 
finer, their gladness shows itself in a greater variety of 
ways with more regular and beautiful motions, and with 
melody." * Here we have very near approaches to con- 
scious artistic production. Indeed, the theory of the 
derivation of the aesthetic sentiments from the play im- 
pulse, enunciated by Schiller more than a century ago in 
his Briefe iiber die asthetische Erziehung des Menschen, 
and more systematically formulated by Herbert Spencer 
in his Principles of Psychology, would make these sen- 
timents common both to men and animals. The play 
impulse, like the art impulse, has its source in the 
imagination, and the form in which it finds expression 
is determined chiefly by the force of heredity modified 
by the action of the imitative instinct. The kitten, the 
kid, the puppy, the young bird, and the child has each 

' * The Naturalist in La Plata, by W. H. Hudson, 3d ed., Lon- 
don, 1895^ pp. 264, 280. 



THE ESTHETIC SENSE. 347 

its own style of performance, which, consists in what 
Herbert Spencer calls " dramatizing ^' the serions and 
habitual occupations of their parents and elders. The 
young do in fun the things in which the adults of their 
kind are earnestly engaged, and thus unconsciously ex- 
ercise faculties and acquire capabilities destined to be 
of immense ulterior benefit to them in the struggle 
for existence. This form of diversion, which Prof. 
Groos calls " experimenting," enters largely into the 
education of children, and is the most important factor 
in kindergarten instruction, owing to the long duration 
of human infancy. With most animals this sportive 
simulation begins very early, but soon gives place to 
serious activity. The kitten stretches its legs, thrusts 
out its claws, scratches whatever comes in contact with 
them, runs after a rolling ball, and, in lack of other 
objects of pursuit, indulges the predatory instincts of 
the feline race by chasing its own tail. The lowest or- 
ganisms have no leisure in the proper sense of the term; 
all the powers they possess are constantly and exclusively 
employed in securing the bare necessities of life. As 
we ascend to animals of a higher type we find them en- 
dowed with superior faculties, which enable them to 
procure food and shelter, to protect themselves against 
enemies, and to propagate their species, and yet leave 
them time and strength not wholly absorbed in making 
provision for their pressing wants. This surplus of en- 
ergy finds its natural outlet in play, which, as already 
observed, is the resultant of hereditary tendencies and 
imitative propensities, and marks the starting point 
in the cultivation of the ideal. In the above-cited 
work (p. 227), Mr. Hudson describes very vividly 
the strange impression produced by large flocks of 
23 



348 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

chakars or crested screamers singing together on the 
pampas of South America. On one occasion he saw 
countless numbers of them gathered along the shores of 
a narrow sheet of water and arranged in several well-de- 
fined groups of about five hundred each and extending all 
round the lake. " Presently one flock near me began 
singing and continued their powerful chant for three or 
four minutes; when they ceased, the next flock took up 
the strains, and after it the next, and so on until the notes 
of the flocks on the opposite shore came floating strong 
and clear across the water — then passed away, growing 
fainter and fainter, until once more the sound ap- 
proached me travelling round to my side again. The 
effect was very curious, and I was astonished at the order- 
ly way with which each flock waited its turn to sing, in- 
stead of a general outburst taking place after the first 
flock had given the signal." At another time he heard a 
similar performance on a still larger scale. This occurred 
at a place called Gualicho, on the southern pampas, 
where, after riding over a marshy plain covered with in- 
numerable groups of chakars, he had stopped for the 
night at a small ranclio inhabited by a gaucho and his 
family. About nine o'clock, while they were eating 
supper, the vast multitude of birds covering the marsh 
for miles around burst forth into a tremendous evening 
song, the effect of which was indescribable. " One pecul- 
iarity was that in this mighty noise, which sounded louder 
than the sea thundering on a rocky coast, I seemed to be 
able to distinguish hundreds, even thousands, of individ- 
ual voices. Forgetting my supper, I sat motionless and 
overcome with astonishment, while the air and" even the 
frail rancho seemed to be trembling in that tempest of 
sound. When it ceased, my host remarked with a smile, 



THE ESTHETIC SENSE. 349 

' "We are accustomed to this, seiior — every evening we 
have this concert/ It was a concert well worth riding a 
hundred miles to hear." It is evident from the regular 
occurrence of this performance and the circumstances 
attending it that it was merely a musical entertainment, 
having nothing more to do with sexual solicitation or woo- 
ing than has an assembly of men and women giving or 
hearing a piece of instrumental or vocal music in a thea- 
tre or a concert hall. It was the expression and gratifi- 
cation of aesthetic feeling, having a crude and inchoate 
artistic character like the singing of savages, only more 
melodious. As Just stated, it is well known that monkeys, 
and especially chimpanzees and gorillas, take a childish 
delight in making loud and discordant noises by beating 
on hollow trees and other resonant objects, and often 
accompanying this din with shouts of exultation, which 
afford them the same pleasure that it gives an urchin to 
pound on a tin pan or many an adult to listen to the mo- 
notonous wheezing of a hand-organ. The only differ- 
ence in these cases is that the bird has a finer musical 
sense and a more delicate appreciation of the " concord 
of sweet sounds " than the simian or the human creature. 
The fact, too, that some birds sing less freely and to our 
ear at least less charmingly in the pairing season than at 
other times, would imply the existence of other and 
stronger incentives to song than sexual attraction, and 
can be best explained by assuming that they find pleasure 
in the mere act of singing or in the production of musical 
tones. For this reason they meet together and exercise 
their voices in concert; this occurs also as a general rule 
out of the pairing season and aiter the young are fledged 
and can take part in the performances. It has also been 
repeatedly observed that the male sings his most beauti- 



350 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

ful songs not as a suitor, but as the prospective father of 
a family, namely, while the female is brooding. What- 
ever emotion this more elaborate carol of the bird may 
express, whether paternal pride or conjugal love, it is 
certainly not the strain in which the feathered warbler 
woos his mate. Some species of grallatorial birds, 
such as the New Caledonian kagu {RMnochitus jubatus) 
and the African umber or shadow-bird {8copus urn- 
Iretta), although extremely grave and dignified when 
in repose, are wont to work off their surplus of vigor 
by wild pranks and antic postures. All at once the 
usually staid and rather ungainly fowl begins to dance 
and skip about in the liveliest manner, seizing with its 
long beak a tail feather or the tip of its wing, as a 
ballet-dancer does her gauzy skirt with the tips of her 
fingers, and prancing and pirouetting in a style that 
would do credit to any Terpsichorean " star " of the oper- 
atic stage. Sometimes the fantastic performance ends 
with a startling acrobatic climax, the bird standing on its 
head, or rather on the end of its beak, flapping its wings 
and waving its bright-hued legs like flames in the air. 

The fertilization and propagation of many plants 
depend upon the existence of a sense of colour in insects, 
and the exercise of choice in the selection of flowers. 
This preference implies a pleasure in certain hues, and 
consequently the possession of a rudimentary perception 
of beauty. Plants whose fecundation depends upon the 
action of the wind do not develop such a variety of 
colours as those in which this depends upon the agency 
of insects. Nature can trust her ill-favoured daughters 
to the wooing of the wind, but if she wishes to attract a 
nicer class of suitors she must endow her children with 
brilliant qualities. - 



THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 35I 

The power of distiuguisliing between colours has 
been denied not only to the lower animals^ but also to 
the lower races of mankind. But a more extended and 
accurate knowledge shows that the conclusion is incorrect 
in both cases. We know that the American aborigines 
discriminate between the seven primary colours^ and it 
is absurd to infer that this faculty was wanting to the 
Homeric men merely because we do not find all these 
colours mentioned in the Homeric poems. It has also 
been asserted that the ancient Assyrians could not dis- 
tinguish green from blue or yellow^ because no word 
was found for it in the remains of their language. But 
the tiles discovered at Mneveh prove that they had a 
very clear conception and aesthetic appreciation of the 
distinction between yellow^ green, and blue, and prob- 
ably did not confound any colours of the solar spectrum. 
The evidence of language on this point is purely negative 
and necessarily defective. 

Even the religious sentiment, which has been as- 
sumed to be the peculiar possession of man, is fairly fore- 
shadowed in the lower animals. The unanimity of opin- 
ion among those who have made the most careful study 
of this subject, and whose views are therefore entitled to 
the greatest consideration, is quite remarkable. M. A. 
de Quatrefages, in his Eapport sur le Progres de FAn- 
thropologie (Paris, 1867, p. 85), maintains that " domestic 
animals are religious, since they readily obey those who 
appeal to them with the rod or with sugar." In other 
words, they are amenable to rewards and punishments, 
doing the will and seeking to win the favour of superior 
beings, on whom they are dependent, propitiating and 
fawning upon them, creeping and grovelling on the 
ground in abject adoration, in order to assuage their 



352 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

anger or to secure their kind regard. " There is no dif- 
ference/^ adds the same author, "between the negro 
who worships a dangerous animal, and the dog who 
crouches at his master's feet to obtain pardon for a fault. 
. . . Animals fly to man for protection as a believer 
does to his god." 

This is precisely the feeling of the savage in respect 
to the superior skill and power of the civilized man. 
Taguta kipini te Atua — doctor all the same as God — are 
the words in which the Morioris, or aborigines of the 
Chatham Islands, expressed their sense of dependence 
on a higher agency, whose beneficent workings they per- 
ceived but could not comprehend. Among rude tribes 
the sentiment of devotion to a chief does not differ essen- 
tially from that of devotion to a god; the Romans, at the 
height of their civilization, paid divine honours to their 
emperors; and in modern monarchies kings are officially 
addressed in terms of reverential awe and superlative 
adulation as all-wise and all-powerful beings, whose fa- 
vour one can not sufficiently implore with servile words 
and suppliant knee. 

" The feeling of religious devotion," says Darwin, 
" is a highly complex one, consisting of love, complete 
submission to an exalted and mysterious superior, a 
strong sense of dependence, fear, reverence, gratitude, 
hope for the future, and perhaps other elements. ]^o 
being could experience so complex an emotion until ad- 
vanced in his intellectual and moral faculties to at least 
a moderately high level. N"evertheless, we see some dis- 
tinct approach to this state of mind in the deep love of 
a dog for his master, associated with complete submis- 
sion, some fear, and perhaps other feelings." * 



* The Descent of Man. London, 1874, p. 95. 



THE EELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 353 

Comte held that the higher animals are capable of 
forming fqtichistic conceptions, and of being strongly 
influenced by them. Herbert Spencer denies the truth 
" of this statement in its absolute form, because it does not 
fit into his theory of the origin and evolution of religious 
ideas, but admits, what is essentially the same thing so 
far as the present discussion is concerned, that " the be- 
haviour of intelligent animals elucidates the genesis " 
of fetichism, and gives two illustrations of it. " One of 
these actions was that of a formidable beast, half mas- 
tiff, half bloodhound, belonging to friends of mine. 
While playing with a walking stick, which had been 
given to him and which he had seized by the lower end, it 
happened that in his gambols he thrust the handle against 
the ground, the result being that the end he had in his 
mouth was forced against his palate. Giving a yelp, 
he dropped the stick, rushed to some distance from it, 
and betrayed a consternation which was particularly 
laughable in so large and ferocious-looking a creature. 
Only after cautious approaches and much hesitation was 
he induced again to lay hold of the stick. This behav- 
iour showed very clearly that the stick, while displaying 
none but the properties he was familiar with, was not 
regarded by him as an active agent, but that when it 
suddenly inflicted a pain in a way never before experi- 
enced from an inanimate object, he was led for the mo- 
ment to class it with animate objects, and to regard it as 
capable of again doing him injury. Similarly, in the 
mind of the primitive man, knowing scarcely more of 
natural causation than a dog, the anomalous behaviour 
of an object previously classed as inanimate suggests 
animation. The idea of voluntary action is made nas- 
cent, and there arises a tendency to regard the object 



354: ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

with alarm, lest it should act in some other unexpected 
and perhaps mischievous way. The vague notion of 
animation thus aroused will obviously become a more 
definite notion as fast as the development of the ghost 
theory furnishes a specific agency to which the anoma- 
lous behaviour can be ascribed." 

This conduct of the dog, which every one must have 
observed under similar circumstances, corresponds to that 
of the savage who worshipped an anchor which had been 
cast ashore, and on which he had hurt himself when he 
first came in contact with it. Superstitious fear of this 
sort prevails most among men of the lowest order of in- 
telligence, or in that stage of society in which human be- 
ings are psychically least removed from beasts. In pro- 
portion as they rise in the scale of existence and unfold 
their mental faculties, the more they free themselves 
from the tyranny of the supernatural. The terror of 
the dog hurt by the stick was out of all proportion to the 
pain inflicted, and arose solely from the fact that it was 
produced by a mysterious cause; it was fear intensified 
by the intervention of a ghostly element, and thus work- 
ing upon the imagination it assumed the nature of 
religious awe. The case is analogous to that of a big, 
burly, brutal savage trembling before a rude stock or 
stone, or a Neapolitan bandit cowering before an 
image of the Virgin or kissing devoutly the feet of a 
crucifix. 

The other illustration given by Herbert Spencer is 
that of a retriever, who, associating the fetching of game 
with the pleasure of the person to whom she brought it, 
would often fetch various objects and lay them at her 
master's feet; and " this had become in her mind an act 
of propitiation." 



THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 355 

Still more interesting and instructive are Mr. Eo- 
manes's experiments with a Skye terrier. This dog, 
which was exceedingly intelligent and therefore an ex- 
cellent subject for psychological study, " used to play 
with dry bones, by tossing them in the air, throwing them 
to a distance, and generally giving them the appearance 
of animation, in order to give himself the ideal pleasure 
of worrying them. On one occasion, therefore, I tied a 
long and fine thread to a dry bone and gave him the latter 
to play with. After he had tossed it about for a short 
time I took the opportunity, when it had fallen at a dis- 
tance from him and while he was following it up, of 
gently drawing it away from him by means of the long, 
invisible thread. Instantly his whole demeanour changed. 
The bone which he had previously pretended to be alive, 
began to look as if it were really alive, and his astonish- 
ment knew no bounds. He first approached it with 
nervous caution, but, as the slow receding motion con- 
tinued and he became quite certain that the movement 
could not be accounted for by any residuum of force 
which he had himself communicated, his astonishment 
developed into dread, and he ran to conceal himself 
under some articles of furniture, there to behold at a 
distance' the ^ uncanny^ spectacle of a dry bone coming 
to life." In this instance we have the exercise of close 
observation, judgment, reason, and imagination culmin- 
ating in the exhibition of superstitious fear — all the ele- 
ments, in short, which constitute religious sentiment in 
its crudest form. 

Animals are afraid of darkness for the same reason 
that children are. Thunder, lightning, and other violent 
meteorological phenomena., which inspire the primitive 
man with awe and therefore play a prominent part in the 



\^\ 



I 

J 



356 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

evolution of early mythology, produce a similar impres- 
sion upon many of the lower animals, simply because they 
are mysterious noises which appeal to the imagination 
and stimulate the mythopceic faculty. Mr. Eomanes 
states that " on one occasion, when a number of apples 
were being shot out of bags upon the wooden floor of an 
apple room, the sound in the house as each bag was shot 
closely resembled that of distant thunder.'' A setter 
was greatly alarmed at the noise until he was taken to the 
apple room and shown the cause of it, after which " his 
dread entirely left him, and on again returning to the 
house he listened to the rumbling with all cheerfulness." 
Dogs and horses can be completely cured of their fear of 
thunder by being present at artillery practice; they 
imagine that they now know what produces the dreadful 
roar, and are henceforth free from all apprehension con- 
cerning it. 

To some extent this sense of the supernatural seems 
to enter into the sphere of pure imagination and to 
excite in the minds of animals those vague feelings of 
anxiety and alarm arising from mere figments of the 
brain and characterized as superstition. The following 
incident, " illustrating the instinctive fear of death and 
consciousness of its presence manifested by birds," is 
related by Buist: "A hen canary died, was buried, the 
nesting establishment broken up, the surviving cock bird 
removed to a new cage, and the hatching cage itself thor- 
oughly cleansed and purified, and put aside till the fol- 
lowing spring. ISTever, however, could any bird after- 
ward endure being placed in that cage. They fought 
and struggled to get out, and, if all in vain their efforts, 
they moped, huddling close together, thoroughly un- 
happy, refusing to be comforted by any amount of sun- 



THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 357 

shine, companionship, or dainty food." The experiment 
was tried with foreign birds, that had not been in the 
house when the death of the hen occurred, and could not, 
therefore, have known anything of the melancholy event 
by observation. The result, however, was always the 
same. " For the future that cage to them was haunted." 

It is a common belief that many animals can see 
ghosts and future events. Justinus Kerner declares (Die 
Seherin von Prevost, i, 125) that they are endowed with 
second sight, and that numerous facts can be adduced 
in proof of it. This uncanny faculty is supposed to be 
especially strong in dogs and horses. Storks, too, are 
known to have foreseen the burning of houses on which 
they had been wont to build their nests, rnd to have 
abandoned them, taking up their abode on other build- 
ings or on trees in the vicinity. N'o sooner had the an- 
ticipated conflagration taken place, and a new house 
been erected on the same site, than they returned and 
built their nests on it as heretofore. That Balaam's ass 
perceived the angel, which was beyond the ken of the 
prophet, ought to suffice to convince every believer in the 
plenary inspiration of the Bible of the spectre-seeing 
powers of the lower animals. The ghost stories told of 
dogs and horses are quite as numerous and well authenti- 
cated as those which have been told of men. There is 
no psychological theory of apparitions that does not ex- 
plain these strange phenomena as satisfactorily in 
beasts as in human beings. The night side of Nature 
casts its gloom over both. 

Of course, if religion is a direct and special revelation 
to man, then no sentient creature prior pnd inferior to 
him could have any share in it. The hypothesis of a 
pure primitive monotheism, of which all polytheistic 



358 ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

systems of belief are mere distortions and degradations, 
would also tend to exclude the lower animals from the 
possession of religious sentiment by showing that the 
religious history of the race has been a downward instead 
of an upward movement, a corruption instead of an evolu- 
tion. Its growth would not correspond to the growth 
of intelligence, and it could no longer be studied as a 
psychological phenomenon, but would be removed at 
once from the province of scientific investigation. 
There can be no science of the supernatural, since science 
recognises only the operation of natural laws. A mir- 
acle that can be explained, as the rationalistic school of 
theology has attempted to do, ceases thereby to be a 
miracle. The essence of religion is mystery; the sole 
aim of science is to clear up and thus do away with mys- 
teries — a goal which it is always tending toward but will 
never reach, for the same reason that an asymptotic line 
never meets the curve which it is constantly approaching. 



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Whitney, William Dwight. Oriental and Linguistic Studies. 
New York, 1872. 

Willis, Th. De Anima Brutorum quae hominis vitalis ac sensitiva 
est. Amstelod, 1674. 

Wilson, Andrew. Sketches of Animal Life and Habits. London, 
1877. 

W. de F. (Antoine Edmond Wolheim). Animaux Diplomates. 
Leipzig, 1863. 

Wood, J. G. Man and Beast, Here and Hereafter. London, 1874. 

Wundt, Wilhelm. Vorlesungen iiber die Menschen- und Thier- 
seele. 3 vols. Leipzig, 1863-'64. 2d ed. 1 vol. 1892. Eng- 
lish translation. London, 1896. 

Youatt, William. The Obligation and Extent of Humanity to 
Brutes, etc. London, 1839. 

Young, Thomas. An Essay on Humanity to Animals. London, 
1798. 

Ziegler, H. E. tTber den Begriff des Instincts. Verb, der 
Deutschen Zoolog. Gesellschaft. Leipzig, 1891. 



INDEX 



Abbott, Dr., on mechanical skill of 

the oriole, 200 ; on aphasia in the 

quail, 299. 
Abel, his offering, 90. 
Addis, W. E., on animals as things, 

97. 
-^schylus, quoted, 31. 
Agriculture, conservative influence 

of, 39 ; first promoters of, 43 ; holi- 
ness of, 60-69; fatal to nomadic 

life, 71. 
AhTiramazda, 59, 62, 66, 67. 
Airyana-Vaejo, 64. 
Akemmano, 69. 
Albert, meaning of, 22. 
Alexander, meaning of, 22. 
Aliens, as enemies, 26 ; former 

treatment in England, France, 

and Italy, 34-37. 
Alix, E., on musical poodles, 345. 
Altum, on the " natural necessity " 

of bird-song, 220. 
Amenophis III and IV, 33. 
Americans, their extravagance, and 

ignorance of economic laws, 102, 

103. 
Amnon, his relations to Tamar, 51. 
Amphicyon, ancestor of dog and 

bear, 281. 
Amtsberg, his experiment with a 

pike, 186. 



Anacreon, extols the song of the ci- 
cadse, 342. 

Anasis, foes of agriculture, 72. 

Anaximander, as an evolutionist, 
137. 

Ancon sheep, origin of, 214. 

Angro-Mainyush, 69. 

Animals, denial of their rights by 
mediaeval and modern school- 
men, 2, 96-99; in the eyes of 
primitive man, 4; superstitious 
fear and worship of, 6, 118-120 ; 
effect of domestication on their 
relations to man, 7 ; Zarathustra, 
doctrine of, 8, 59 ; regard of Bud- 
dhists and Brahmans for, 9, 88, 
148, 164; Greek speculation con- 
cerning, 10 ; views of early Chris- 
tians concerning, 11 ; moral and 
religious symbolism of, 12 ; capi- 
tal punishment and excommuni- 
cation of, 13, 155 ; penal laws for 
the protection of, 14, 100-102 ; the 
clergy opposed to rights of, 14; 
Lotze's theory of animal souls, 15 ; 
measure of man's duty to, 18 ; an- 
thropocentric teachings of Holy 
Writ, 10, 88-90; practical work- 
ings of biblical teachings con- 
cerning, 89-93, 96-99, 146-152, 
156-161 ; arguments in favour of 



370 



INDEX. 



immortality of, 94; limitation of 
man's dominion over, 97 ; cruel- 
ties inflicted in transporting, 101 ; 
influence of the doctrine of me- 
tempsychosis, 135-138; societies 
for protection of, 138; hospitals 
for, 139-144, 147 ; excessive 
scruples of Jainas concerning, 
141 ; tormented by Mantegazza, 
142 ; foolish fondness for pet,. 145 ; 
Munich Thierschutzverein, 149 ; 
dilemma of a philozoic par- 
son, 149 ; scriptural injunctions 
of kindness to, 149-152, 164; in 
hagiology, 152-159 ; " not Chris- 
tians," 160; attitude of Catholic 
Church toward, 159-162; decree 
of Pius IX concerning, 160 ; 
cruelty of Italians to, 154, 160 ; 
inalienable rights of, 164; psy- 
chical kinship with man, 167, 171 ; 
power of choice in the lowest, 
172; no precise line of demarca- 
tion between vegetables and, 171- 
173; Schneider's psychological 
classification of, 175, 178-181, 
185; Oken's temperaments of, 
179; mental impulses of food- 
storing, 179; sentinel-posting, 
182, 183 ; mutual benefit associa- 
tions of, 184 ; didactic procedures 
with, 186-189; paternal training 
of, 189, 198; wild speculations 
about, 191; fanciful distinctions 
between man [and, 192-194; dif- 
ference in bodily constitution 
and its influence on mental de- 
velopment of man and, 194^196; 
institutions common to man and, 
197 ; communities of, 198 ; im- 
provableness of, 198, 200-206, 212- 
216 ; military organization of, 
210 ; inheritable qualities of, 213- 
215 ; their conceptual world com- 
pared with that of savages, 215, 



225; influence of domestication 
on their mental development, 216- 
218; tamability of, 218; "time- 
sense " in, 223-227 ; tradition in 
communities of, 225 ; suicide of, 
227; nature of benevolence in, 
228; conjugal unions of, 228, 
229; jealousies of, 229; sense of 
community in, 230 ; courts of jus- 
tice held by, 230-235; criminal 
impulses in, 236 ; social and in- 
dustrial organizations of, 227-240 ; 
adaptation to environment, 240- 
243 ; relapse into barbarism, 241 ; 
diflerent stages of evolution, 247 ; 
grades of intelligence, 250 ; size 
of brain and mental capacity. 
252; personal benevolence and 
altruism of, 255-257 ; use of tools 
by, 257-265 ; as miners, 263 ; logi- 
cal faculty of, 265-267; humour 
in, 268 : speech as the Eubicon 
between man and, 271-273, 291- 
295, 300; formation of general 
concepts by, 282, 286, 291, 310; 
ability to count, 285 ; strange 
transformations of individual, 
280 ; evolution of different species 
of, 281 ; vices of civilization ac- 
quired by, 313 ; language of, 291- 
294, 299-310, 310-330; knowledge 
of the fine arts as a distinction 
between man and, 333 ; inferior- 
ity of man in physical structure 
to, 334, 335 ; long and helpless in- 
fancy of some, 335 ; advantage of 
quadruman over quadruped, 336 ; 
aesthetic sense and artistic skill 
of, 337-339 ; appreciation of mel- 
ody by, 339-350 ; musical instruc- 
tion of, 340, 344, 345 ; play im- 
pulse in, 345-347 ; musical ap- 
paratus of, 343; musical per- 
formances by, 343-350; colour 
sense in, 87, 350 ; religious senti- 



INDEX. 



371 



ment in, 351-358 ; fear of thunder 
and darkness, 355, 356; fear of 
ghosts and second sight in, 356, 
357. 

Anthony, St., his sermon to fishes, 
155; celebration of his feast in 
Eome, 156. 

Anti-Semitism, a survival of tribal- 
ism, 50. 

Ants, progressive evolution of, 205 ; 
structure of their hills, 206 • 
white, 207 ; agricultural, 245-247 ; 
cazadores or nomadic, 247 ; 
"cattle-lifting," 248; slavehold- 
ing, 249 ; difl'erence of intelli- 
gence in, 250 ; ingenuity of, 251 ; 
size of brain and mental capacity 
of, 252 ; babyhood and education 
of, 253 ; moral attributes of honey, 
255; Darwin's experiment with, 
255; method of heating their 
habitations, 265 ; language of ges- 
ture highly developed by, 292 ; 
language of, 311, 318. 

Apes, social organization of, 41 ; 
wine-making and pottery-fabri- 
cating, 261 ; language of, 315, 317, 
324 ; long infancy of anthropoid, 
335; manual dexterity of, 262, 
336. See Monkeys. 

Aphasia, cause and examples of, 
295-298. 

Aphides, kept by ants as cattle, 
248, 249. 

Apiarists, improvements introduced 
by, 202. 

Apuleius, his Golden Ass, 115; 
reputation as a sorcerer, 116. 

Aquinas. See Thomas Aquinas. 

Archseopteryx, ancestor of birds and 
reptiles, 281. 

Arda-Viraf, his piety and incest, 13. 

Aristophanes, quoted, 23. 

Aristotle, quoted, 10 ; on the re-em- 
bodiment of poets as cygnets. 



,114; on heart- beating as peculiar 
to man, 191 ; on phone and pso- 
phos, 309. 

Armaiti, personification of the 
earth, 59, 66. 

Arnold, Thomas, perplexed by the 
Christian doctrine of animals, 91, 
92, 93. 

Arnold, T., quoted, 97. 

Arts, first developed by dwarfs and 
cripples, 44 ; animal appreciation 
of the fine, 333-351. 

Asceticism repudiated by Parsis, 61. 

Ashemaogho, the impure, 63. 

Asia, meaning of, 22. 

Aspereua, meaning of, 62. 

Ass, use of weapons by an, 259 ; vi- 
sion of Balaam's, 357. 

Assyrians, their distinction of col- 
ours, 351. 

Astovidhotus, the death demon, 63. 

Astrology, persistence of, 85. 

Astronomy, geocentric, 24, 82. 

Augustine, on sorcery, 115 ; on pre- 
destination, 130. 

Austin, Philip, denies the duty of 
kindness to brutes, 97. 

Australians, as beasts of venery, 78 ; 
their numerals and words for 
colours, 287. 

Avesta, quoted, 2, 51, 59-63. 

Bacon, Lord, quoted, 93. 

Bactria, social evolution in, 58. 

"Bai Sakarbai," hospital for ani- 
mals, 142. 

Balantis, tribal ethics of the, 25. 

Barbarian, origin of the word, 23 ; 
later applications of the term, 31, 
32 ; conservatism of the, 70. 

Barclay, John, on the immortality 
of animals, 94. 

Barley, first grain cultivated, 44. 

Barnum, his contract with King 
Thibo for a white elephant, 143. 



372 



INDEX. 



Barthelot, Major, his cruelty to ' 

Africans, 78. 
Bastian, on termites in India, 211. 
Bateman, on aphasia, 298. 
Battas, parricide as a mark of filial 
affection, 109. 

Bayle, on comets as portents, 86. 

Bedouins, hospitality of, 30 ; hostil- 
ity to agriculture, 72. 

Bees, colonization of, 198; artificial 
comb for, 202 ; products of human 
industry used by, 203; "sweat- 
ing," 203-205 ; cause of the hex- 
agonal form of their cells, 205; 
liability to error, 207, note ; math- 
ematical thinking of, 224 ; demo- 
cratic government of, 237 ; mater- 
nal functions and conjugal rela- 
tions of their queen, 237-239 ; 
drones as prince consorts, 239 ; 
radical changes in the habits of, 
240 ; degeneracy of, 240-242 ; 
brigand, 241 ; effect of alcoholic 
drinks on, 242; interhival rela- 
tions of, 243; foresight of, 244; 
brain of, 252; pantomimic lan- 
guage of, 292. 

Beethoven, his musical spider, 341. 

Belief, supersession of kinship by 
religious, 53. See Keligion. 

Bell, A. Graham, his attempts to 
teach animals to speak, 216, 300. 

Bellarmine, Cardinal, his nasty 
means of grace, 152. 

Benares, as the centre of the earth, 
21. 

Bentham, Jeremy, on animal rights, 
13. 

Bergh, Henry, on the cruelty of 
corporations to animals, 101, 102. 

Berlin, meaning of, 22. 

Bernard of Clairvaux, on the tolera- 
tion of Jews, 74. 

Bernardine de Saint-Pierre, his tele- 
ology, 83. 



Berzelius, on the products of vital 
forces, 174. 

Bethlehem, as the centre of the 
earth, 21. 

Bettzieh-Beta, on termites, 208. 

Bible, anthropocentric teachings of 
the, 149, 150, 152. 

Birds, Jewish protection of, 151 ; 
Italian cruelty to, 154; relation of 
saints to, 154, 157 ; sentinel-post- 
ing, 182 ; conjugal instinct in, 
197; parasitic, 199; their im- 
provements in nest building, 
200-202; "time-sense" in, 226; 
conjugal virtue of, 229 ; sense of 
community in, 230; courts of 
justice held by, 230-234 ; use of 
tools by, 260; their ability to 
count, 285 ; aphasia in, 299 ; ar- 
ticulation by, 300 (see Parrots 
and Eavens) ; aesthetic sense in, 
338, 339 ; musical education of, 
329, 340; the play impulse in, 
345-350; musical concerts by, 
347-349 ; dancing, 350. 

Blanchard, on termites, 208. 

Blood, brotherhood of, 24-26 ; su- 
perstitious regard for, 26-28; 
Christian enlargement of the 
bond of, 28. 29 ; all nations and 
all creatures of one, 164. See 
Ethics. 

Body, development of the soul de- 
pendent upon the, 15 ; seat of the 
soul, 26 ; made by the soul, 121 ; ' 
mind not destroyed with the, 
123; acquisition of new organs of 
the, 124; no knowledge of spirit 
separate from the, 132-135. 

Boethius, on metamorphoses, 116. 

Bordeaux, termites in, 211. 

Bouillard, on aphasia, 295. 

Bower bird, aesthetic sense and ar- 
tistic taste of the, 338. 
I Bozen, ingenuity of ants in, 251. 



INDEX. 



373 



Brahmanism, doctrine concerning 
animals, 9, 88, 138 ; caste in, 58 ; 
necessity of a son to salvation, 63. 

Brehm, A. E., on the language of 
apes, 315 ; on ^the nearness of the 
ape to man, 337. 

Broca, on aphasia, 295, 297. 

Brotherhood, the sole cement of 
primitive society, 25; Christian 
theory of universal, 28; Cicero 
and Marcus Aurelius on human, 
28, 29 ; artificial creation of, 27 ; 
feigned by sovereigns, 33 ; natu- 
ral superseded by religious, 55. 

Biichner, quoted, 137; on drones, 
238 ; on demoralized bees, 242 ; 
on the rearing and training of 
ants, 253, 254. 

Buddha and Buddhism, doctrine of 
animal life, 9, 88, 127, 136, 138. 

Buffon, on animal intelligence, 202, 
212, 213, 291. 

Buist, on canaries and the haunted 
cage, 356. 

Bullfights, under the auspices of 
the Church, 161. 

Burnaburiash, his correspondence, 
33. 

Burns, quoted, 90, 131. 

Butler, Bishop, on animal immor- 
tality, 94. 

Cain, type of primitive man, 30 ; his 
offerings, 90. 

Calvin, John, his doctrine of pre- 
destination, 130, 1G8. 

Canaries, conjugal virtue of, 229 ; 
appreciation of melody by, 339 ; 
ghost-seeing, 356. 

Cannibalism, origin of, 27, 118 ; 
practised by Europeans, 79. 

Canning, George, his abolition of 
the alien law, 38. 

Carlyle, Thomas, his false etymol- 
ogy of king, 41. 



Carrion fly, acts under the impulse 
of perception, 180. 

Carus, Paul, on naming, 291 ; on 
the language of ants, 318. 

Cassiodorus, quoted, 191. 

Cathrein, Victor, ridicules kind- 
ness to animals, 99. 

Cato, on usury, 74. 

Cats, asylum for, 144 ; training of, 
219 ; standard of goodness in, 228 ; 
the play impulse in, 347. 

Cattle, care for, 2 ; cruelty in trans- 
porting, 101, 102. 

Cazadores, nomadic ants, 247. 

Cells of bees, cause of their form, 
205. 

Celsus, his polemic against anthro- 
pocentric Christianity, 10. 

Cicero, cosmopolitan spirit of, 28. 

Chakar, 64. 

Chakars, musical concerts of, 348, 
349. 

Chaumette, his aviary, 145. 

Chekiang, wine-making apes in, 
261. 

Chester, meaning of, 22. 

Chevage, tax on aliens, 36. 

Chimpanzees. See Apes and Mow- 

KETS. 

China, the centre of the earth, 23. 

Chinvad, bridge to paradise, 63, 132. 

Christ, his gospel a sword, 56. 

Christianity, its attitude toward ani- 
mals, 10, 88-99, 138. 

Cicada, prized by the Greeks as a 
singer, 342 ; now known to be a 
violinist, 343. 

Clifford, Prof., on the movements of 
atoms, 302. 

Cobbe, Frances Power, on zoophi- 

ly, 3. 

Cock, cruel treatment of the, 160, 

161. 
Cockneyism, a survival of tribalism, 

88. 



374 



INDEX. 



Colour, sense of, in animals and sav- 
ages, 287, 338, 351. 

Columbanus, St., wild animals at- 
tracted by, 153. 

Comets, as portents, 86. 

Comte, Aug., on fetichism in ani- 
mals, 353. 

Conception, impulse of, 175-181. 

Congo, cruelties in, 78. 

Consanguinity, the primitive basis 
of moral obligation and social 
union, 25. See Blood and Beoth- 

EEHOOD. 

Consciousness, in the lowest forms 
of life, 167. 

Cope, Prof., on superiorities of ani- 
mals to man in physical structure, 
334. 

Cormorants, tool-using, 260. 

Couthon, his pet spaniel, 145. 

Cowper, William, quoted, 151, 193. 

Creed, cohesive attraction of the, 
56. 

Cripples, the first inventors, 44. 

Crows, tool-using, 260. 

Crystallization, phenomena of, 172- 
174. 

Cuckoo, habits of different species 
of, 199. 

Cyril, quoted, 39. 

Cyrus, wedded to his sister, 51. 

Czynski, Czeslav, hypnotic sugges- 
tion and swindling, 117. 

Dadabhoi Naoroji, a " nigger," 46. 

Dakotas, as dog-eaters, 118. 

Dards, primitive barbarism of, 70. 

Darmesteter, his solar theory of 
Zarathustra, 69. . 

Darwin, Charles, on intelligence in 
the oyster, 17 ; his Origin of Spe- 
cies, 14, 137 ; on worms, 151 ; on 
the fallibility of bees, 207, note ; 
on agricultural ants, 245 ; on the 
ant's brain, 252 ; his experiment 



with ants, 255 ; on the difi"erent 
barking tones of the dog, 282 ; on 
the sense of melody and colour in 
birds, 337 ; on religious sentiment 
in animals, 352. 

Darwin, Erasmus, his theory of di- 
vine beneficence, 103. 

Dasyus, aborigines of India, 68. 

Death, continuous process of, 
134. 

Descartes, on animals as machines, 

. 170. 

Detractus personalis, punishment 
for emigration, 40. 

Devas, diabolized deities, 59. 

Dogs, tortured by Mantegazza, 142 ; 
asylum for, 144 ; as specialists, 
216 ; reared for food, 218 ; " time- 
sense " in, 226 ; generous friend- 
ship of, 256, 257 ; ak-ak denoting 
eagerness in the language of, 282; 
distinct barking tones acquired 
through domestication, 282, 283 ; 
power of classification, 286 ; abil- 
ity to count, 288, 322 ; expression 
by wagging the tail, 292 ; at the 
mercy of metaphysicians, 294; 
able to articulate words, 300 ; sent 
on errands and to the market, 
321-323 ; compared to monkeys, 
336 ; musical taste and training 
of, 343-345 ; religious sentiment 
in, 352-355 ; ghost stories about, 
357. 

Domestication, results of, 216-219, 
282, 283. 

Donkey, club wielding, 259. 

Droit d'aubaine, against aliens, 35. 

Drones, the prince consorts of the 
hive, 239. 

Droste-Hlilfshofi; Annette von, her 
poem The Lark, 342. 

Dybowski, on Garner's studies of 
simian speech in Africa, 330- 
332. 



INDEX. 



375 



Ebrard, on auts, 254. 

Edinburgh, meaning of, 22. 

Edmonson, Dr., on the judicial pro- 
ceedings of hooded crows, 231. 

Eleusis, privilege of asses at, 150, 
151. 

Elliott, George, quoted, 90. 

Emerson, Ealph Waldo, on evolu- 
tion, 11, 135. 

Emigration, right of, 47-49; barbar- 
izing effects of, Y8-80. 

Empedocles, 137. 

English, insularity of the, 23 ; boor, 
34 ; laws against aliens, 37, 38 ; 
tribal spirit in their extradition 
treaties, 40; King George's men, 
49 ; treatment of Negritos, 78 ; 
cannibalism,- 79. 

£paves, aliens as waifs, 36. 

Ethics, relation of animal psycholo- 
gy to evolutional, 2, 4, 14 ; philo- 
zoic, '3 ; ethnocentric, 24^26, 73 ; 
survivals of tribal, 33-40, 49, 50, 
77-79 ; supersession of ethnocen- 
tric by theocentric, 53, 55-57, 58, 
73-76 ; anthropocentric, 89 ; de- 
fect of Jewish and Christian, 88- 
99 ; scientific basis of philozoie, 
96 ; legal recognition of animal 
rights as a corollary to evolution- 
al, 100. 

Europe, meaning of, 22. 

Expatriation, right of, 47. 

Family, included domestic animals, 
8 ; differentiated out of the tribe, 
41, 229. 

Fate, Oriental idea of, 121, 122. 

Feigning death, by animals, 181. 

Fellahin, strangers hated by, 34; 
meaning of, 72. 

Feuerbach, Ludwig, 137. 

Fire, used by animals, 264. 

Fiske, John, Herbart's idea devel- 
oped by, 194. 



Flourens, on mind in animals, 291. 

Fliigel, O., on animal tribunals and 
simulation, 234, 235. 

Forel, on ants, 254. 

Fournier, his fondness for squirrels, 
145. 

Francis of Assisi, St., wolf of Gub- 
bio reformed by, 155 ; his Cantico 
delle Creature and sympathy with 
beasts and birds, 157, 158. 

Frederick III, his decree concern- 
ing Jews in JSIuremberg, 74. 

Free will, nature and extent of, 167- 
170. 

French, childish exhibition of 'tri- 
balism by the, 25. 

Fuligatti, biography of Cardinal 
Bellarmine, 152. 

Gabella hereditarius, against aliens, 

40. 
Galen, on man's upward look, 192. 
Gall, St., bear addressed in Latin 

by, 153. 
Galton, Francis, on training animals 

for mental power, 215. 
Garner, K. L., his studies of simian 

speech and their results, 312-315, 

319, 328-332. 
Gatha dialect, 58. 
Gennadius, on creation, 84. 
Geography, ethnocentric, 20-24, 82. 
George, meaning of, 22. 
Germans, called Nemici, 24; ethics 

of ancient, 25 ; called barbarians 

by the Romans, 32; old laws of 

the, 35, 36. 
Gervinus, on the ancient Greeks' 

love of nature, 190. 
Gessner, K., on the stargazer, 184. 
Gifford, Ellen M., her refuge for 

cats and dogs, 144. 
Glendower, 85, 153. 
Goar, St., hinds commanded by, 

153. 



376 



INDEX. 



Goethe, Poroscopy of, 86 ; on pre- 
existence with Frau von Stein, 
116 ; on Orient and Occident, 162 ; 
on language, 289. 

Goring, Prof., 840. 

Gould, on the bower bird, 338. 

Grabei-, Vitus, on the relative size of 
insect brains, 252 ; on the musical 
apparatus of the cicada, 343. 

Graul, on the treatment of animals 
in India, 136. 

Gray, quoted, 87. 

Greeks, early speculations of the, 14 ; 
survival of their geographical 
terms, 22; their classification of 
mankind, 23; their attitude to 

{ strangers, 31 ; their disregard for 
the decrepit, 139. 

Green, Prof., on the mental opera- 
tions of a burnt dog in the pres- 
ence of fire, 294. 

Grenville, Lord, his alien bill, 
38. 

Groos, Karl, on the play impulse in 
animals, 347. 

Habeneck, his musical poodle, 345. 

Haeckel, Ernst, on treatment of ani- 
mals in India, 136 ; on aboriginal 
ants, 205. 

Hagen, H., on termites, 209, 211. 

Hailara, Henry, on the souls of 
brutes, 95. 

Hamann, 137. 

Hand, its influence on mental 
growth, 194, 195. 

Hanikl, his remarkable parrot, 326. 

Hartmann, Eduard von, 137. 

Harvey, anticipated by Nemesius, 
11. 

Haug, 65. 

Hawthorne, his Donatello, 159. 

Hebrews, ethnocentric notions of, 
6; survival of tribal marriage 
among, 8; tribal religion of, 57; 



contempt for Christians, 75. See 
Jews. 

Hedley, John Cuthbert, animal 
rights denied by, 96. 

Hegel, quoted, 55. 

Heidegger, Gotthard, his speaking 
raven, 300. 

Heine, Heinrich, reflections of his 
lizard at Lucca, 189. 

Hens, efi"ect of alcohol on, 243. 

Hephaestus, 44. 

Heraclitus, on psophos, 309, 310. 

Herbart, on the disciplinary value 
of religion in early society, 55 ; on 
the three chief causes of man's 
mental development, 1 94, 334. 

Herbert, George, his precepts for 
parsons, 90. 

Herder, on animals as elder broth- 
ers, 18, 137. 

Hermit crab, 184. 

Herodotus, quoted, 43, 57, 63 ; on 
the transmigration of souls, 110. 

Hettinger, his apology for Christian- 
ity, 14. 

Hickok, Dr., denies duties to ani- 
mals, 98. 

Hippocrates, on the stargazer, 110. 

Hobbes, man rational because ora- 
tional, 272. 

Holden, Prof., on the suicide of a 
rattlesnake, 227. 

Homer, on kindness to strangers, 29. 

Horace, his apokyknosis, 114. 

Horoscopy, 85. 

Horses, cruelty to, 102 ; training of, 
188 ; transmission of qualities by, 
213; "time-sense" in, 226; fear 
of thunder, 356 ; ghost-seeing, 
357. 

Hospitality, sacredness of, 30; to- 
kens of, 32. 

Hospitals for animals, 139-145, 147. 

Hotspur, his retort to Glendower, 
85. 



INDEX. 



377 



Hubcr, Francois, on bees, 207, note ; 

" royal treatment " of, 237 ; on 

foresight in, 244. 
Huber, Pierre, on ants, 207; on 

" royal treatment " of ants, 237 ; 

on slaves of ants, 254. 
Hubert, St., his vision of a stag, 

155. 
Hudson, W. H., on the play impulse 

in mammals and birds, 345, 346 ; 

on the musical concerts of cha- 

kars, 347-349. 
Humboldt, A. von, on an Aturian 

parrot, 325. 
Humboldt, W. von, on language, 

289. 
Hun, Dr., on child language, 277. 
Hunger, as an impulse, 55, 175-177. 
Huxley, his line of separation be- 
tween animals and man, 333. 
Hysenarctos, ursine and canine, 281. 

Impulses, Schneider's four cate- 
gories of, 175. 

Incarnation, as a curse, 113. 

Infusoria, their power of choice, 170 ; 
metamorphosed into algse, 172. 

Insects, sense of colour in, 87, 350 ; 
vocal organs of, 310-312 ; love of 
musical tones, 340 ; musical in- 
struments of, 342, 343. 

Instincts, analogous to habits in 
man, 18 ; not unchangeable, 198, 
210, 212, 240-243 ; liable to error, 
206, 207. 

Institutions common to animals and 
man, 197. 

International conscience, slow 
growth of, 25. 

Ionic school, evolution taught by 
the, 9, 137. 

Ivan the Terrible, 100. 

Jaeger, Charles, on the language of 
animals, 294. 



Jainas, excessive fear of killing 
animals, 136, 140, 141. 

James, St., care for birds, 154. 

Jameson, Mr., his barbarity to ne- 
groes, 78. 

Jameson, Mrs., on the delinquen- 
cies of the pulpit, 90 ; on cruelty 
to dogs in Vienna, 145. 

Janet, Charles, on the vocal organs 
of ants, 312. 

Japu, artistic talent of the, 339. 

Jerusalem, the centre of the earth, 
21. 

Jesse, on beehive fortifications, 241. 

Jesus, his belief in pre-existence, 
114. 

Jews, their ethnocentric ethics, 23, 
24 ; superstitious regard for blood, 
26 ; not proselytizing, 57 ; tribal 
feeling, 74-76; their schabbesgoi 
and dread of perjury, 76 ; place 
of animals in their cosmogony 
and religion, 88-91 ; theory of 
transmigration adopted by, 110- 
112; poverty of their scriptures in 
regard to animals' rights, 149- 
152. 

Julian, Emperor, compares German 
to the caw of ravens, 293. 

Jus albinagii, kolbekerlii, and wild- 
fangiatus, 35, 36. 

Kagu, dancing feats of the, 350. 

Kalewala, quoted, 4. 

Kapila, Indian prototype of Darwin, 
166, note. 

Kedney, Prof., his argument against 
evolution, 335. 

Kerner, Justinus, on second sight 
in animals, 357. 

Kepler, 85. 

Kiliraa-Njaro, a raid of driver ants 
in, 247. 

Kinship. See Blood and Brother- 
hood. 



378 



INDEX, 



Kipling, J. Lockwood, on the treat- 
ment of animals in India, 135. 

Kitto, on the sacrificial institution, 
90. 

Knownothingism, 39. 

Kolbenrecht, 36. 

Krause,on mental development in 
relation to moral rights, 18, 137. 

Lactantius, Lucius, on human broth- 
erhood, 28, 29 ; his distinction be- 
tween men and brutes, 192. 

La Mettrie, on men as machines, 
•170. 

Landois, Prof., on the tone language 
of mosquitoes, 310, 311. 

Language, as a barrier between man 
and beast, 271-273 ; as the test of 
rationality, 272; roots of, 273- 
276, 278, 281, 283, 302, 303, 315 ; 
child, 276-280 ; identity of thought 
and, 288, 317 ; a social institution, 
288, 289; theories of the origin of, 
278, 283, 290, 306-308 ; not super- 
natural, 306 ; pantomimic, 289, 
291, 292, 299 ; organ of articulate, 
295 ; animal, see Animals. 

La Eochelle, termites in, 209, 211. 

Lecky, on Egyptian hospitals for 
animals, 145. 

Leibnitz, on the useof human speech 
by animals, 216, 300. 

Lenz, on the maternal training of 
kittens, 188 ; on tradition in bee- 
hives, 243. 

Leonhard, St., feast of, 157. 

Lessing, on the acquisition of new 
senses, 124-126. 

Levant, local meaning of, 22. 

Liberia, republic of, 77. 

Lindo, Miss, her hospital for horses, 
144. 

Linsecom, Dr., studies of Texan 
agricultural ants, 245, 246. 

Livingstone, on the soko, 267-269. 



Lizard, Heine's, 189 ; love of music, 
340. 

Lotze, Hermann, his theory of souls, 
15, 137. 

Louis XIV, absolutism of, 100. 

Lubbock, Sir John, his experiment 
with ants, 250. 

Lucian, his imaginary metamorpho- 
sis, 115. 

Lucretius, on human brotherhood, 
29. 

Ludwig I, his futile efforts to attract 
birds, 159. 

Macarius, St., his penance, 153. 

Macgowan, on wine-making apes, 
261. 

Magpie, its ability to count four, 
285. 

Maine, Sir Henry Sumner, on the 
evolution of social institutions, 
25-40, 45, 46, 53. 

Man, his place in nature, 15, 83-89, 
99; turning point in his evolu- 
tion, 17 ; world of primitive, 20 ; 
ethics of primitive, 24, 73 ; broth- 
erhood of, 28, 33 ; social survivals 
of palaeozoic, 33, 34^38 ; suprem- 
acy of, 89-99, 192-194; his superi- 
ority and inferiority in bodily 
structure, 194, 334. 

Manchuria, wine-making apes in, 
261. 

Mandrill, vicious nature of the, 312- 
315 ; teachableness of the, 313. 

Manichaeans, metempsychosis 

taught by the, 112. 

Mansel, Prof, on language and 
thought, 288. 

Mantegazza, Prof., hospitals for ani- 
mals ridiculed by, 142; his "tor- 
mentor," 142. 

Manu, institutes of, 121. 

Manyuema, their inferiority to the 
soko, 267, 268. 



INDEX. 



379 



Marat, his devotion to doves, 145. 

Marcus Aurelius, his cosmopolitan 
spirit, 29. 

Marriage, tribal, 31; with next of 
kin, 51, 52 ; with ritual relations 
prohibited, 54; among animals, 
197, 228. 

Mather, Increase, on portents, 86. 

Mazdayasnians, 59, 69, 

McCook, Henry C, on agricultural 
ants, 247 ; on honey ants, 255. 

Mecca, centre of the earth, 21. 

Mechanical labour, its value as a 
discipline, 195. 

Megapode, artificial heat used by 
the, 265. 

Melody, appreciated by birds, in- 
sects, and dogs, 339-349; monkeys' 
attempts to produce, 269, 349. 

Menander, on the brotherhood of 
man, 28. 

Mercer, G. K., on the language of 
the Veddahs, 290. 

Mersenne, on the language of ani- 
mals, 323, 325. 

Metempsychosis, 9, 88 ; universality 
of the belief in, 106-110; held by 
Jews and Manichseans, 110-112; 
exegetically applied by Origen 
112-114; taught by the Greeks, 
114 ; in mythology and folklore, 
117 ; basis of zoolatry and canni- 
balism, 118 ; as applied metaphor, 
121 ; predestination explained by, 
112, 113, 122, 129-132; individual 
extinction the final aim of, 127, 
128 ; from an ethical point of 
view, 130; the embodiment of 
cherished propensities, 121, 131 ; 
the spiritual counterpart of meta- 
morphosis, 132; as a code of 
morals in relation to the lower 
animals, 135-138 ; correspondence 
of the doctrine of evolution to, 
162-164, 166. 
25 



Meyer, Hans, on driver ants, 247. 

Milton, his Stygian metaphysicians, 
130, 131 ; on man as God's master 
work, 193. 

Missing link, probable language of 
the, 316. 

Moebius, Dr., on Amtsberg's experi- 
ment with a pike, 186, 188. 

Moggridge, on trapdoor spiders, 258. 

Moleschott, 137. 

Molothrus, its essays at nest-build- 
ing, 199. 

Monacella, St., protectress of hares, 
154. 

Monboddo, Lord, his theory of the 
origin of language, 290. 

Monkeys, tool-using, 259, 261, 262 ; 
as miners, 263 ; use of fire, 264 ; 
reasoning from cause to elfect by, 
265, 266, 299; ability to count, 
286; language of, 272, 314-317, 
319, 324, 329-332; plastic period 
of, 337 ; musical concerts of, 269, 
343, 349. 

More, Henry, on four dimensions, 
124. 

Morioris, doctor revered as a god 
by, 352. 

Mormons, sacredness of agriculture 
taught by, 72. 

Moss, Capt. E., his monkeys as 
miners, 263. 

Mother, descent from the, 26. 

Miiller, Max, on language as our 
Kubicon, 271-273 ; on roots as ul- 
timate facts in language, 273; 
Sanskrit examples of the forma- 
tion of roots, 274-276, 278, 281, 
282, 303, 304; concomitant and 
significant clamour, 283, 305, 310 ; 
on the ability of animals to count 
and form general concepts, 281, 
282, 285, 286; on interjections 
and exclamations, 283, 287 ; on a 
mere " fold of the brain," 295 ; on 



380 



INDEX. 



the evolution of the eye, ear, and 
brain, 297 ; on " nursery philol- 
ogy," 301, 312; Noire's theory 
indorsed by, 303, 307 ; on the 
Homo alalus, 304, 305; on the 
bow-wow, pooh-pooh, and yo-he- 
ho theories, 307 ; on philology in 
the menagerie, 312. 
Munich, meaning of, 22; Thier- 
schutzverein in, 149 ; former 
cruelty to animals in, 159. 

Name day, importance of, 64. 
Nanak, compared with Paul, 128. 
Napoleon III, his appeal to tribal 

prejudice, 49. 
Nation, modern conception of a, 46. 
Negritos, as beasts of venery, 78. 
Negroes, prejudice against, 77 ; 

analogies between monJieys and, 

267, 268, 337. 
Nemici, Slavonic appellation of 

Germans, 24. 
Neoherbartianism, 15. 
Neolamarckian school of science 

125. 
Neoplatonism, 10, 137. 
Neopythagoreanism, 10, 137. 
Nicaise, his wonderful parrot, 326- 

328. 
Nirvana, final aim of Buddhism, 

128, 129. 
Noire, on the origin of language, 

303. 
Nomadic tribes, transition to seden- 
tary life, 42, 64, 70-73 ; ants, 247. 
Norton, Allen H., logical faculty in 

his dog, 266. 
Nursery, philology in the, 301, 

312. 
Nutrition, impulse of, 175-177. 

Oken, his classification of animals, 

178. 
Opossum, power of simulation, 181. 



Orang-outangs. See Apes and Mon- 
keys. 

Organisms, evolution of animated, 
167, 171-174. 

Orient, animal ethics in the, 9, 88, 
136, 145 ; local significance of the 
term, 22 ; pantheism and atheism 
in the, 126 ; evolutional specula- 
tion in the, 162-166. 

Origen, against Celsus, 10 ; on the 
purpose of animals, 10 ; metemp- 
sychosis the basis of his exege- 
sis, 112, 113. 

Orioles, skill in nest-building, 200, 
201, 339. 

Orpheus, reborn as a swan, 114. 

Ovid, on the erect posture of man, 
192 ; in the Pontus, 271. 

Owl, mental horizon of the, 194. 

Paley, his definition of virtue, 92. 
Panis, his golden pheasants, 145. 
Panjab, 68. 
Panjara Pol, described, 139-142, 

143. 
Panpsychism, as the basis of animal 

rights, 137. 
Panslavism and Panteutonism, 50. 
Pantheism, 126, 129. 
Pantomime, as a means of expres- 
sion, 291-293. 
Parrots, use of articulate sounds by, 

271 ; remarkable, 325-327. 
Parsi, classification of animals by 

the, 136. 
Parson, dilemma of a German, 149. 
Pasturage, fatal to hunting tribes, 

71. 
Pasu, meaning of, 7. 
Patriotism, a survival of tribalism, 

25 ; barbarous exhibitions of, 34- 

38, 40 ; Dr. Johnson's definition 

of, 228. 
Paul, his influence on Christianity, 

58 ; compared with Nanak, 128 ; 



INDEX. 



381 



his doctrine of election, 130 ; on 
soul and body, 133 ; compared 
with Buddha, 164. 

Paulsen, 137. 

Penguin, erect posture of the, 194. 

Perception, impulse of, 175-181. 

Peter, on brute beasts, 152. 

Pfeifer, his musically trained spar- 
row, 340. 

Pharisees, as proselyters, 57. 

Phenacodus Primaevus, progenitor 
of hooked or clawed animals, 
281. 

Physical organs, their relation to 
mental development, 15-18. 

Pig, mental deterioration through 
domestication, 217 ; as a hunter, 
218. 

Pike, Amtberg's experiment with a, 
186-188. 

Pithecoid man, bodily aids to the 
mental growth of, 17. 

Pius IX, his dictum concerning ani- 
mals, 160. 

Plants, function of colour and odour 
in, 87. 

Plato, on pure soul, 121 ; on the ori- 
gin of a priori ideas, 123 ; on pre- 
existence, 125 ; on the song of the 
cicada, 342. 

Plautus, Latin called barbarous by, 
31. 

Plimsoll, Samuel, on cattle ships, 
101. 

Pliny, on the incendiary bird, 265. 

Plotinus, 10, 137. 

Plutarch, 9 ; on religion as the foun- 
dation of the state, 55. 

Poe, E. A., quoted, 85. 

Points of the compass, 20, 22. 

Polyandry, survivals of, 31, 41. 

Polynesians, as affectionate parri- 
cides, 108. 

Popes, Spanish bullfights and the, 
161. 



Porphyrius, 9, 137 ; on the language 
of animals, 293. 

Pound, purpose of the, 144. 

Prantl, Prof, on the mental opera- 
tions of animals, 222-225, 265; 
denies " time-sense " to animals, 
223 ; weak point of his specula- 
tions, 225 ; denies use of tools and 
fire to animals, 257, 264 ; on the 
art impulse in animals, 224, 
334. 

Prehension, as an aid to comprehen- 
sion, 195. 

Preyer, Prof., on animal simulation, 
181. 

Primitive man, aliens and animals 
in the eyes of, 4^8 ; limited world 
of, 20-22 ; idea of retributive jus- 
tice entertained by, 37 ; tribal 
marriage of, 31, 50 ; his belief in 
the transmigration of souls, 107- 
109, 119. 

Property, origin of the conception 
of personal, 176 ; soke's idea of, 
269. 

Protista, nature of, 171, 172. 

Protoplasm, evolution of organisms 
out of, 173. 

Psophos, distinction between phone 
and, 309. 

Psychology, comparative, 2,17,162; 
scholastic, 2, 3, 220 ; Neoherbar- 
tian, 15 ; anthropocentric, 83. See 
Animals and Zoopsychology. 

Public opinion, wholesome influ- 
ence of, 80. 

Pythagoras, his memory of pre-ex- 
istence, 114, 125, 137 ; fish re- 
leased by, 154. 

" Quack," an onomatopoetic root in 
child language, 276, 277, 279, 
280. 

Quadrumans, their advantage over 
quadrupeds, 336. 



382 



INDEX. 



Qiiaquas, animal worship by, 119. 
Quatrefages, on the religious senti- 
ment in animals, 351. 

Eacine, on man's heavenward look, 
193. 

Eadeau, E., on the language of ani- 
mals, 323 ; Mersenne's theory of 
language rejected by, 324. 

Eats, benevolence in, 258. 

Eattlesnake, suicide of a, 227. 

Eavens, infliction of punishment by, 
234 ; use of fire by, 264 ; use of ar- 
ticulate speech by, 300. 

Eeason, boundaries of instinct and, 
6, 95, 167, 170 ; in animals, see 
Animals. 

Eeclam, Prof., on a musical spider, 
341. 

Eelationship, real and ritual, 54. 

Eeligion, moral influence of, 9 ; its 
value in early society, 55 ; in ani- 
mals, see Animals ; as a revela- 
tion to man, 357, 358. 

Eichard, Jules, on simian speech, 
324. 

Eickaby, Eev. Joseph, animals not 
autocentric, 2. 

Eivayals, cited, 64. 

Eochefort, termites in, 211. 

Eomanes, on intelligence in the 
amoeba, 17 ; on tool-using ani- 
mals, 259 ; on child language, 
276 ; a chimpanzee's knowledge 

' of numeration, 286 ; a speaking 
terrier, 300 ; on the Homo alalus, 
305 ; example of religious awe in 
a Skye terrier, 355. 

Eome, urbs et orbis, 21. 

Eoots of language. See Max MUl- 

LER. 

Eosegger, on anarchism in the 

hives, 240. 
Eostan, Prof., his attack of aphasia, 

298. 



Eotundity of the earth, and the 
rights of man, 21. 

Sacy, Silvestre de, on the study of 
Sanskrit, 318. 

Sad-dar, cited, 63. 

Sadducees, 57, 127. 

Saints, their relations to animals, 
152-156. 

Sakarbai, Lady, her hospital for 
animals, 142. 

Samodershez, title of Czar as tribal 
sovereign, 45. 

Sanhedrin, 57. 

Sanskrit, formation of roots in, 274, 
278, 281; alleged superiority of, 
284 ; as a fabrication of Brah- 
raans, 318. 

Satar, 64. 

Savages, tribal spirit of, 2, 21 ; treat- 
ment of old and infirm, 139 ; abil- 
ity to count and distinguish col- 
ours, 287, 351. See Primitive Man. 

Sayce, Prof., on Bushman speech, 
301. 

Schabbesgoi, 76. 

Scheitling, on canine love of music, 
344. 

Schelling, on religion as the cement 
of society, 54. 

Schiller, on love of nature by the 
Greeks, 190; on art as the pre- 
rogative of man, 334 ; on the play 
impulse in animals, 346. 

Schlagintweit, on elephants as 
dam-builders, 259, 260. 

Schleiermacher, 137. 

Schneider, G. H., his four categories 
of mental impulses, 175 ; his psy- 
chological classification of ani- 
mals, 178 ; on the impulses of 
food-storing animals, 179 ; on the 
stargazer, 185. 

Schomburgk, Dr., simian reasoning 
from cause to efiect, 265. 



INDEX. 



383 



Schopenhauer, on a radical defect 

in Judaism and Christianity, 88 ; 

panpsychism, 137 ; on men as 

devils, 147. 
Schutz, Leopold, irrationality of 

brutes a dogma of the Church, 

96 ; animals as puppets, 219, 220. 
Scorpions, suicide of, 227. 
Scripture, place of animals in, 88 ; 

kindness to animals inculcated in 

passages from, 149, 150. 
Scythians, their language like the 

chatter of cranes, 293. 
Sea anemone, its relation to the 

hermit crab, 184. 
Sea pudding, as gourmand, 170. 
Second sight, ascribed to animals, 

357. 
Sedley, on St. Peter's crime, 161. 
Semon, Eichard, on Australian 

tribes, 287. 
Senegambia, termite mounds in, 

212. 
Sensation, impulse of, 175, 177-181. 
Sentinels, posted by animals, 182, 

183. 
Shadow-bird, as dancer, 350. 
Shakespeare, quoted, 132, 317. 
Shelley, on man's supremacy, 89. 
Shylock, as typical Hebrew, 76. 
Sikh, prophet, 128. 
Silius Italicus, on man's upward 

look, 193. 
Simmins, S., on "sweating" bees, 

202-205. 
Sioux, idea of retributive justice, 

37. 
Sister, marriage of own, 51, 52. 
Slavonic, meaning of, 24. 
Smeathman, on termite soldiers 

and workers, 210. 
Smith, William B., his club-wield- 
ing donkey, 259, 
Smith, Sydney, on brute souls as 

immortal, 94. 



Socrates, on pre-existence, 114; 
Xantippe's grievance against, 
176. 

Soko, characteristics of the, 267- 
269, 343. 

Solomon, his cynical view of life, 
147, 148 ; on ants, 254. 

Song. See Birds. 

Sophocles, his use of phone, 309. 

Souls, congeniousness of, 15 ; influ- 
ence of bodily conditions on, 16- 
18 ; immortality of brute, 93-96 ; 
transmigration of, 106 (see Me- 
tempsychosis) ; origin of the be- 
lief in the immortality of, 177. 

Spain, animals' rights not recog- 
nized in, 14, 161. 

Sparrows, maternal training of, 189 ; 
improvements in nest-building 
made by, 202 ; musical education 
of, 340. 

Spartans, guest-hating, 31 . 

Spencer, Baldwin, on the musical 
tones of the Australian spider, 
342. 

Spencer, Herbert, on the play im- 
pulse in animals, 346; on reli- 
gious awe and propitiation in ani- 
mals, 353, 354. 

Spento-mainyush, 8. 

Spiders, their love of music, 340- 
342. 

Spiegel, 62, 65. 

Spinoza, on the indestructibility of 
mind, 123 ; as lens-grinder and 
philosopher, 176 ; on benevolence 
in animals, 228. 

Spirit. See Souls. 

Squirrels, their impulses to action, 
179 ; as explorers, 182. 

Stargazer, as angler, 184. 

Steinthal, on birds and brutes, 193, 
194; on the origin of language, 
305, 306. 

Steward, Dugald, on the adaptabil- 



384 



INDEX. 



ity of animals and its value to 

man, 98. 
Stoics, liberal philosophy of the, 28, 

137. 
Storks, their conjugal relations and 

courts of justice, 230-254. 
Suicide, by reptiles, 227. 
Sunisar, an Indian atheistic poem, 
^ 127. 

Siinyavadinah, 127. 
Svoboda, quoted, 177. 
Swallows, their recent improve- 
ments in nest-huilding, 200. 
Swedenborg, his vision, 120. 
Swine, scientific breeding of, 214. 

See Pig. 
Switzerland, clannish spirit in, 34, 

■36. 
Symbol, as a token of hospitality, 

32 ; Christian, 56. 

Tailor-bird, its progress in artistic 
skill, 201. 

Tait, Lawrence, on drunken wasps, 
242. 

Tamar, her relations to Amnon, 51. 

Taylor, Father, on ruffianism, 147. 

Teleology, absurdities of anthropo- 
centric, 83-88. 

Tennent, Sir James Emerson, on 
the Veddahs of Ceylon, 289, 290. 

Terence, quoted, 24. 

Termites, habitations of, 207-210, 
212; the "royal residence" of, 
208 ; engineering skill of, 209 ; 
destructiveness of, 211 ; propor- 
tion of soldiers to workers, 210, 
211. 

Tesseres hospital es, 32. 

Theft, as a tribal virtue, 25. 

Theocritus, on the soul of the Ne- 
mean lion, 93. 

Theodicy, untenableness of ortho- 
dox, 104, 131. 

Theophrastus, 9, 137. 



Thibetans, polyandry of the, 31. 

Thibo, King, his white elephant, 
143. 

Thomas Aquinas, his philosophy 
indorsed by the Catholic Church, 
3; head of mediaeval scholiasts, 
12 ; his doctrine of objective ne- 
cessity, 130; on the beast soul, 
134. 

Thoreau, his sympathy with ani- 
mals, 159. 

Thought, impulse of, 175-181. 

Thracians, their contempt for hus- 
bandry, 43 ; their language like 
the chatter of cranes, 293. 

Titmouse, skill of the, 339. 

Tooke, Home, on interjections, 283 
285. 

Tools, used by animals, 257-263. 

Torres, Countess de la, her asylum 
for cats, 144. 

Totemism, origin and survivals of, 6. 

Treiber, Eev. A., his musical poo- 
dle, 344. 

Trent, Council of, 54. 

Tribe, ethics of the, 24, 73 ; genesis 
of the, 41-43 ; tribal superseded 
by territorial sovereignty, 42-46 ; 
marriage within the, 50-52; re- 
ligion of the, 55-58, 

Trousseau, on aphasia, 298. 

Tumblebugs, insectile and human, 
180. 

Tycho de Brahe, his belief in as- 
trology, 85. 

Tyrell, Kev. George, his scholastic 
psychology, 3. 

Umber, as a dancer, 350. 

United States, national stronger 
than race feeling in the. 46 ; right 
of expatriation asserted by the, 
47 ; legislation inconsistent with 
this right, 48. 

Usury, primitive notions concern- 



INDEX. 



385 



ing, 73 ; Cato on, 74 ; exacted by- 
Jews from Gentiles, 74; laws 
regulating and punishing, 75. 

Vaccination, denounced as impious, 
84. 

Vedanta, influence of the, 126. 

Vedas, religion of the, 67. 

Veddahs, not degraded but unde- 
veloped, 290. 

Veland, represented as lame, 44. 

Vendidad, dualism of the, 8, 59 ; 
sacredness of agriculture in the, 
60-67. 

Vinci, Leonardo da, his kindness to 
birds, 154. 

Viraf, Arda, his polygamy and in- 
cest, 51. 

Vital force, artificial products of, 174. 

Vogt, Carl, on the conjugal infidel- 
ity of storks, 232 ; on the human 
and simian brain, 296. 

Vogtleute, 36. 

V6humand,the Good Mind, 8, 62, 68. 

Vulcan, lameness of, 44. 

Wagtails, nests of, 202. 

Waitz, Theodor, on barbarized 
Europeans, 79. 

"Wallace, A. E., on simian infancy, 
335. 

Wallace, D. Mackenzie, on the Cos- 
sacks, 71. 

Walton, Izaak, on the nightingale's 
song, 340. 

Wasps, effect of alcohol on, 242. 

Wattenwyl, Brunner von, on the 
music of the cicada, 348. 

Wayland, Dr., on duties to animals, 
98. 

Weaver bird, skill of the, 339. 

Weir, James, battle of ants de- 
scribed by, 248 ; on the vocal or- 
gans of ants, 311. 

Wenzel, G. I., his studies of animal 



speech, 320-323; conversation of 
foxes overheard by, 320; his al- 
phabet of animal speech, 321 ; 
knowledge of human language 
acquired by dogs, 321, 322. 

Wert, E. W., cited, 64. 

Weygandt, on " milking " bees, 241. 

Whitney, W. D., on language as a 
social institution, 288 ; on mispro- 
nunciation and false accent, 309 ; 
on the synergistic theory, 310. 

Wildfangsrecht, 36. 

Wilks, Dr., on knowledge of the 
fine arts as distinctively human, 
333. 

Williams, Monier, on hospitals for 
animals in India, 139-141. 

Wives, three kinds of Persian, 64. 

Wohler, urea chemically produced 
by, 174. 

Woman, transmission of race quali- 
ties through, 27 ; the first agricul- 
turist, 43. 

Wooing, primitive method of, 50. 

Wordsworth, quoted, 317. 

Wundt, Wilhelm, 137; on difier- 
ences of degree between man and 
brute, 170, 171 ; on apian tradi- 
tion, 244, note; on animal lan- 
guage, 293. 

Xantippe, the domestic character of, 
176 ; New England parallels to, 
177. 

Xenarchos, on the enviable mute- 
ness of the female cicada, 342. 

Yajnavalkya, definition of fate by, 

122. 
Yima, enlargement of the earth by, 

64^66. 
Yukan, Persian child-wife, 64. 

Zarathustra, his classification of 
animals, 8 ; social reformation by, 



386 



INDEX. 



58; his teachings, 59-63, 66-68; 
holiness of husbandry proclaimed 
by, 60, 72. 

Zebras, ostriches used as sentries 
by, 183. 

Zoolatry, basis of, 6 ; ethical influ- 
ence of, 7 ; its relation to metemp- 
sychosis, 118 ; survivals of, 6, 119 



Zoophily, ethics of, 3 ; scientific ba- 
sis of, 96. 

Zoopsychology, a branch of com- 
parative psychology, 17 ; ethical 
influence of, 96; metaphysical 
barriers between man and beast 
gradually removed by, 162-164, 
171. See Animals. 



THE END. 



.'TN 



^^ 14/949 



EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS 

AND 

ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY 



BY 



E. P. EVANS 



AUTHOR OF ANIMAL SYMBOLISM IN ECCLESIASTICAL 
ARCHITECTURE, THE CRIMINAL PROSECUTION AND 
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT OF ANIMALS, ETC. •:• •:• 




NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1897 



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